


Tribulation

by Plonq



Category: Furry (Fandom)
Genre: Drama, Furry, Gen, Homophobia, Minor Violence, Original Character (Giblet), Original Character (Plonq), Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21812656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plonq/pseuds/Plonq
Summary: A new employee triggers some old resentments.Sometimes we do the wrong things for the right reasons. Understand that for every such action, there is an equal and opposite consequence.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	1. New Guy

**Tribulation**

Part 1 - New Guy

_"Whether you're woman or whether you're man_

_Sometimes you got to take a stand_

_Just because you think you can."_

_\- Buffy Sainte-Marie (You've Got to Run (Spirit of the Wind))_

When the muttering wolf stomped around the partition corner with a steaming mug of tea clutched in both of his hands, neither of his two cubicle mates spared him a glance. The stomping and muttering was as much a part of his routine as the nine-thirty tea, and it typically indicated that he was irritated by something he'd seen on the break-room television. It was usually a contemporary political issue that set him off, and since the canine's politics ran diametrically opposite of both his cubicle mates', neither of them were eager to ask him what had him bothered.

The wolf was creeping to the far side of middle age, and it showed. He had the look of one who had likely been very fit in his youth, but time and a sedentary job had slowly built him a paunch as well as a sunken, dull, brown-eyed stare of one who was about done with everything. He flopped heavily into his chair and, as had also become a routine of late, opened the top-right drawer of his desk and shook a couple of the acetaminophen he kept there into his left palm. He washed them down with a large enough swallow of tea to burn his tongue and slammed the drawer shut again.

The snow leopard and otter who shared the cubicle with the wolf readily caught the rattle of the pill container, and they recognized it as the preamble to an uninitiated rant. They were caught unprepared when he finally spoke in a very level tone.

"Either these migraines or these pills are going to be the end of me." The wolf took another slug of his fresh tea. "I see they've hired a new guy," he added, thumbing nonchalantly in the direction of the main elevator. The ears of this cubicle mates perked up visibly at the news, but neither removed their headsets, or otherwise responded while they waited for the meat of his rant to begin. The wolf grunted at their lack of reaction and quietly turned back to his workstation.

"That's it?" demanded Giblet. The otter pulled off his headset and spun his chair around to face the wolf. "Come on, spill it. Who and what did they hire?" The wolf picked up his tea, took a languid sip, and then slowly rotated his own seat to face the otter. Giblet's whiskers twitched in annoyance when he saw the other's measured movements and he realized that he had probably just stepped into a trap.

"You want to know _what_ they hired," said the wolf slowly. He made a show of sipping his tea, gave his wet nose an exaggerated lick and continued. "You know we're supposed to be blind to species - or whatever stupid term they use for it these days. I seem to recall you announcing with some relish that you had completed the mandatory online sensitivity course well before the deadline." He relished another quaff of his drink while the otter stewed in anticipation. "Were you hoping for something in particular?"

Giblet was used to being baited by the wolf, and while he generally found it amusing to get into verbal spars with the canine, he found himself losing patience with the other's games of late. The otter considered a verbal retort and then changed his mind, reaching through the bottom of his chair's backrest to flip his middle finger at the canid.

"You know what I meant," he said sourly. "Is he the new DBA?"

"Better be," said Plonq without turning. The snow leopard had a visual schema open on one screen, and an editor with dense SQL code on the other. Although he caught the verbal barbs between his coworkers, the feline's pretense of working caused him to miss the visual elements of it as the wolf returned the otter's sign with both of his hands before following them up with a gesture that one of British descent might have identified as _the wanker_.

"I dunno." The wolf shrugged and quickly grabbed his tea again as the snow leopard made an aborted move to look his way. "I spotted him with boss-man and what's-her-name from HR." He scratched under his muzzle and reached his other hand back to perch his tea precariously close to the edge of his desk. "He was wearing kind of a douchey shirt, so I'm guessing he's probably going to SAP." He started to turn back to his workstation and made a show of pausing partway around. "And Giblet, even though you're pretending you don’t care, I know you're dying to find out. He's a slotter."

"He's a ... what?" demanded the otter. The snow leopard's ears perked up again at that as well, and he half-turned his head to pay closer attention to the conversation.

"A slotter," said the wolf cryptically. "You know, one of those boutique hybrids you hear about in the news. Half otter and half snow leopard." Giblet exchanged a quick glance with Plonq, but the latter just gave a quick palms-up shrug and shook his head.

"Bullshit," said Giblet. "There are things you can't hybridize, and that's one of them."

The wolf blinked innocently at the other two without speaking for a moment. "I seen what I seen. I expect an apology when you eat your words later." He rubbed his temple and grimaced before rotating his chair back to face his workstation, rescuing his precariously-perched mug as he turned.

Plonq sighed, pulled off his phone headset, grabbed his glasses and rolled back his chair. The dumpy snow leopard rose, stepped around the edge of his desk and peeked over the top of his cubicle. He slid his glasses a bit further down his muzzle and peered in the direction of the elevator. His tail thrashed a couple of times, but other than a noncommittal grunt, he gave no other indication of what he saw.

"Huh," was all he said as he removed his spectacles and lumbered back to his chair. Giblet watched him put his glasses back on the desk and reach for his headset again. When it became clear that the snow leopard was not going to elaborate on this reaction the otter could not contain himself.

"So?" he prompted. He pumped his short legs to wheel his chair over to the other's desk so that he could slap him on the shoulder. "Spill it!"

"He is a slotter," the cat replied. He paused. "Or a snotter, perhaps, depending on how you portmanteau it." Giblet tried to read the feline's body language, but if Plonq was pulling his leg, he was putting on a very good poker muzzle while doing it.

"You _both_ suck," said the otter. "You _can't_ get a hybrid from a snow leopard and an otter."

"Sure you can," said the wolf. He made circle with his index finger and thumb, and stuck the index finger of his other hand through it. "All you need is for a snow leopard and an otter to love each other very much. Then they get married, do the thing and make a baby."

"Makes sense," said the snow leopard, nodding sagely.

"They can do _the thing_ all they want, but no baby will happen," retorted Giblet, casting a quick glare at his friend. "If hybridization worked like that, we'd be up to our necks in little Frankenbabies with all the cross-species marriages these days. The pegs and holes aren't compatible."

"Especially not when you're doing it in the butt," muttered the wolf, loud enough for the other two to hear. The otter ignored his jab.

"I'm no genologist..." continued the otter.

" _Geneticist_ ," hissed Plonq, but Giblet pressed on.

"I don't care how much they love each other; they will _not_ produce a 'slotter'. You're both full of crap."

"Then explain the new guy," said the wolf. He donned his headset and pulled his keyboard closer; making it clear to the otter that he was being dismissed.

"Ugh," said Giblet. He doffed his own phone gear and stood abruptly, "fine." The chunky little mustelid crossed over the cubicle and stepped around the snow leopard's desk to the wall of their shared cubicle. He was a little shorter than the feline, so he had to hook his hands on the top and pull himself up onto his toes to see over the top.

In the distance, Giblet could see the new employee speaking to their director and a familiar ocelot from HR. Whatever their director had said, the other two were treating the little red panda to a hearty laugh. As he stared at the newcomer, Giblet could not think of a better word for him than the wolf's description. The new employee was a young-looking otter, but his fur was silver and marked with very distinctive snow leopard rosettes.

The otter lowered himself down again and turned to lean against the partition.

"He's _adorable_ ," said Giblet breathlessly.

"I knew you'd like him," said the wolf without looking back, dropping his pretense of disinterest. "'cuz you've got the hots for spots."

"And stripes," said Giblet quickly, "also, those are tattoos, you shit stains!"

"Oh," said Plonq with feigned innocence. "That makes at least as much sense as a hybrid."

"I'm jealous," said Giblet. "They fit him perfectly." The little otter ran a hand over the side of his muzzle and sighed. "I've always wanted to get some tat work done, but the peroxides irritate my skin, and the thought of that many needles gets my jimmies in a knot."

"I thought your type was into pain and stuff," said the wolf. The canine was swirling the tea in his mug while he spoke - it was one of the affectations he adopted when he felt like he was on a roll. The otter glared at him, and his muzzle worked like he was going to come back with an angry retort, but he cast a quick glance at their other cube mate and changed his tactic.

"Not as a rule," Giblet said sweetly. He winked saucily at the canine. "But the right kind of pain, judiciously applied in the right places for the right reasons is always an option to keep open." His reply had the desired effect on the wolf as the latter stopped swishing his tea and tossed back another mouthful without further comment.

"I am going to borrow that line for my next performance review when the boss accuses me of making my goals too unambitious," said Plonq, tossing the otter a quick thumbs-up without taking his eyes from his work. Giblet turned back to the partition, hooked his hands over the top and pulled himself up on his toes again.

"I need another look at those gorgeous tats," he said. Out of the corner of his eye, the snow leopard saw the otter freeze, lift his right hand briefly from the partition to wave, and then he quickly lowered himself down.

"Crap!" he said hoarsely. "Well, _that_ was awkward."

"What's the matter, did he catch you fawning at him over the partition?" asked the wolf.

"All _three_ of them did," said the otter glumly. "The boss pointed at me and they all waved, so it was pretty obvious that I was staring."

"That is certainly not embarrassing at all," said the snow leopard. "In fairness, you _were_ gawking."

"Nothing for it now but to go say 'hi' in person," said the wolf, "may as well drool on him up close rather than ogling from a distance."

The otter bobbed his head in thought - it was a practise he'd picked up from their director and many of the other ex-contractors the company had hired into their department. "I guess I could go ask him where he got the ink done," Giblet said pensively.

"Ask him if he is the new DBA," interjected Plonq quickly. "Tell him that if he can get these tables indexed without needing five requests and three months, he will never have to buy his own coffee again as long as he works here."

"Fine," said the otter. "If we're going to be working together I don't want him to think I'm some kind of creeper peeking over partitions at people." Giblet brushed down his shirt and tucked in the tails that had come loose when he'd pulled himself up on the partition before he trundled around the corner of the cubicle and out of sight.

As soon as the otter was clear of earshot, Plonq whipped off his headset, slammed it on his desk and whirled to confront the wolf. " _Dude_ ," he said in something between a hiss and a growl.

"Dude what?" said the wolf innocently. He turned as well to face the snow leopard

"You _know_ what," growled Plonq. "I know you are only teasing him, but you are really starting to toe the harassment line lately."

"If he can't take a little ribbing from a co-worker then fuck him," said the wolf. He rubbed his temple and winced. "Though from what I hear, you probably have."

" _Larry!_ " the growl carried a bit more menace this time. "Do _not_ even go there. I can only speculate on what you _think_ you have heard, but it is _none_ of your business either way." The snow leopard's tail thudded solidly on the floor as he formulated his words. "I am just saying that you are setting yourself up for some HR pain if you push him on the gay thing."

"Giblet's a big boy," said Larry with a low growl of his own. The wolf tossed back the last of his tea in one swallow. "The otter gets in his own share of shots. If he wants me to stop, he can damned well stop it himself. I'm open to a truce. In the meantime, you worry about your own business and we'll worry about ours." The wolf turned his back to the feline, thumped his empty mug noisily on the desk and grabbed his headset again, clearly communicating that he considered the conversation to be done.

"You are not the one who lives with him and gets to hear him complain about you," the cat muttered darkly as he continued to stare at the lupine's back for a moment longer. He fidgeted with his hands, and his tail trashed as he considered saying more, but instead he quietly returned his attention to his own work. Plonq spent a few minutes trying to figure out why his small query was bringing the database to a standstill, but the snow leopard was too irritated to concentrate on his job for long. He spent a few minutes updating some of the comments in his code to include snarky shots at a future debugger, but that lost its lustre fairly quickly as well.

Eventually he gave up on real work and sought catharsis in browsing the internet and informing strangers that they were wrong. Plonq's irritation with the wolf was slowly being pushed aside by his aggravation at the ignorance of people in online forums when the otter finally returned.

"So, his name is Joshua, and he seems really nice," said Giblet in a rapid, airy tone as he burst his way back into their work area and cut between his workmates to his desk. "He's not the new DBA..." He paused to let the other two groan, and then continued. "He's going to be working with Middleware. He came over here from Furlife Insurance because - get this - he gets better coverage from our plan with them than he was getting when he was working _for_ them. Pretty young; I figure early 20's." The otter locked his workstation and shrugged into his coat.

"What else..." he said, doing up the zipper and snaps as he talked, "the tats are even better up close. They're just upper body - head and shoulders, really. He popped open his shirt and showed me where they fade into his normal fur colour. I'm super jelly."

"Geez, he's here five minutes and you're already undressing him," said the wolf with an audibly snide tone. Plonq glanced over his shoulder toward the otter, and Giblet met his look with a cheek twitch and an exaggerated eye roll.

"He's not really my type," said the otter as he adjusted his collar and tugged his jacket down around his hips. "Way too young for one thing." He flicked the snow leopard a quick wink. "Besides, why would I need to undress him when I can undress you in my mind any time I want? Not that I think you’re sexy," he added quickly, "but the mental image kills my appetite whenever I feel like cheating on my diet."

The wolf gave a chuff that the other two recognized as the sound he made when he was trying to think of a good, biting retort. Acting quickly to forestall it, the otter strode over to the feline's desk, placed a hand on his right shoulder and gave him a good jostle. "Come on, make quick with the jacket. It is the time for the coffee, sir!"

"I have got a call in, uh," the snow leopard glanced at the clock in the corner of his nearest monitor, "eight minutes. If you had not spent half the morning talking to the new guy I could have joined you."

"Eh, it was the boss as well. He glommed onto me and started enthusing on about a new project, and all this stuff about real time visualization," said the otter. He gave the snow leopard's ear a flick with his index finger. "Were your ears burning? We were talking about you too." The snow leopard cast an askance look in the otter's direction, but stayed mum. "He wants to put us together on more projects because we work so well as a team. Anyway, you do ... whatever this call of yours is," Giblet said, waving his right hand in a circular flourish to imply that the call involved vague things that held no interest to him. "I suppose I can bring you back a coffee and add it to your tab. I guess you want the usual?"

Plonq nodded.

"The otter is leaving the building," said Giblet to no one in particular. "Smoke me a kipper for my return." Plonq sniggered at the mustelid's mangled reference, but the wolf just muttered darkly under his breath.

"The usual..."

Barely a minute after one otter left their work area, another entered from the other side.

"Knock, knock," said Joshua, poking his spotted muzzle around the corner. "I hope I'm not intruding. I met your workmate and thought I'd come and introduce myself to the rest of his cubicle."

"Oh, hey," said Plonq and Larry in near unison as both stood to address the newcomer. The two of them hesitated when the otter extended his hand for a shake, and after a couple of false starts as each waited for the other to respond, Plonq finally took the initiative and clasped the extended hand.

"Plonq," he said. "I am a data guy - mostly deep dives and analysis." The otter pumped his hand.

"Joshua," said the otter. "I'm sorry that I'm not a database guy," he added with a mischievous gleam in his eye. "I hear I could have had my own shrine." The snow leopard looked pensive, and gave the same head bob that the Giblet had done earlier.

"Shrine might be understating things a bit..." he began.

"You've already got your first worshiper anyway," interrupted Larry.

"Ha," said the otter with a single, barking laugh. He let go of the snow leopard's hand and extended it to the wolf. "I wish I felt worthy of it, but middleware usually doesn't inspire much of a fervent following. You must be Larry."

"The same," said the wolf, taking the proffered hand. "I'm mostly a UI guy. I take the mess that these slobs," he pointed his other thumb over his shoulder and swivelled it to encompass the desks of his coworkers, "try to pass off as usable dashboards. I do the layered charts and heat maps and the like."

"Basically Giblet and I are the cartoonists, and Larry is the colourist," said the snow leopard, "except that all the actors are numbers." This elicited another laugh out of the otter. He extricated his hand from the wolf's firm handshake and leaned up against the corner of the cubicle's partition with his elbow flat on the top.

"I like that analogy," he said. "I have a friend whose dad is a colourist for an indie comic. It's a discipline that deserves a lot more respect than it gets sometimes."

"Exactly!" The wolf winked and motioned a quick finger-gun at the otter. "Totally on point. I think we're going to get along just fine." He held out his right hand and made a vague waving motion toward Giblet's empty desk. "And you've already met your adoring acolyte. He's off flouncing around somewhere at the moment."

The otter blinked, and the snow leopard cast a puzzled glance in Larry's direction.

"My what?"

"Your acolyte - you know - an adoring worshipper for your shrine. Giblet's totally smitten with you." He nodded in Plonq's direction. "You were here - you heard him." The wolf clutched both hands to his chest and breathlessly said, "He's _adorable_." Joshua withdrew from leaning on the cubicle corner and took a step back, crossing his arms nervously.

"I'm, uh, not quite sure how to take that," he said hesitantly. The snow leopard cast a glare in the direction of the wolf that could have both frozen and cut his workmate if the laws of physics had permitted it.

"He was talking about your tats - he just has his ... mannerisms when speaking. You get used to it," said Plonq quickly. He never took his eyes off the wolf while he spoke, making a quick, open-palmed 'what the hell?' gesture with the hand that was out of the otter's line of sight. "He has been talking for years about getting some ink done if he can work up the nerve for it." The otter visibly relaxed.

"Oh yes, we spoke of that at some length," said Joshua, and his demeanour perked up immediately. It was obvious to the others that it was a topic close to his heart. "He was asking me where I got them done, how much it cost, how much it hurt and the like." The otter became more animated as he spoke. "He mentioned that he's got a thing for spots, and he's wanted to get some done in ink. He joked about getting a rosette tramp-stamp so that it's less visible if he chickens out partway through."

"Spots above the tail," said the wolf with a loud guffaw, " _that_ would be a switch. From what I hear, he prefers to take them _below_ the tail."

The spotted otter started to speak, hesitated, and then said, "Are you insinuating something about your co-worker that you think I should know?"

"I'm just saying that if you drop something around Giblet, you may want to wait for somebody without spots to pick it up for you."

" _CHRIST, LARRY!_ " Snow leopards are not one of the roaring cats, but there were few other words to describe the cat's tone at that moment. "What is your damage?"

"I'm sorry," said the wolf loudly, feigning innocence, "it's not right of me to assume that he's the top. Do you guys trade off?"

The otter's body language switched from zero to squicked in an instant. He nervously bumped his fists together in the area of his solar plexus and began to slowly back away from the other two. "It, uh, sounds like you guys have some things to discuss. Maybe I'll go check out my new work area."

The others were too entrenched in their own discussion by now to notice the otter.

"He is not... we do not..." the snow leopard stammered angrily, "actually, _THAT IS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!_ " If their confrontation had not yet caught the attention of the office, the cat's latest outburst certainly did. Joshua was glancing back and forth between the two combatants with wide eyed alarm as they bared teeth and claws. Heads started popping up from neighbouring cubicles, and a buzz of voices began to drown out the usual clacking and buzz of the office.

"Was Plonq just swearing?"

"I never hear him swear."

"What's going on over there?"

"Well it's my business every time he gets up in my face about it. I just want to be able to come in to work one day without having to hear him brag about his latest gay exploits. If you guys want to talk about homo stuff, go to the break room and knock yourself out." All pretense of civility was gone from the conversation now, and Larry's words floated on a low growl as he spoke. "And why is it any of your business if I warn the new guy that Giblet is gay? It's not like he's shy about it anymore. Who died and made you the defender of furry faggots?"

"I am defending him because he is my best friend," snarled Plonq. His tail was puffed out in a manner that would have been amusing in any other circumstances. "I am not going to stand here while you drag him through the mud - especially in front of a new employee."

"Oh, the poor baby," said the wolf mockingly, "needs his big boy to stand up for him. If you feel so bad for him, maybe you can go give him some comfort sex later."

The snow leopard growled and stepped forward, jabbing the wolf in the chest with a clawed finger. "Larry, you are _out of line_ ," he hissed.

"And you're in my space," said the wolf with an angry bark. In a rapid move that caught the snow leopard completely off-guard he planted his hands on the feline's shoulders and shoved him violently back.

  * _End of part 1_




	2. Bad Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blood and destruction are definitely not among the list of things an otter wants to find then he return to his desk from a break. As Giblet discovers, you can't always get what you want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strangely, the hardest part of writing this story for me was choosing the song bits at the start. That is not something I usually do, but I drew the inspiration for that from Bolt_DMC, who has music play a thematically important role in his stories.

**Tribulation**

Part 2 - Bad Blood

_"I started a joke which started the whole world crying_

_But I didn't see that the joke was on me oh no."_

_\- Bee Gees (I Started a Joke)_

Giblet sashayed around the corner with one coffee in his left hand, and another in his right. He had earbuds buried deep in both ear canals and a dance in his step. The little otter held the coffees aloft with his arms in a V while he rocked out in his private musical world. The mustelid loved to dance, and would have been an avid clubber had not all the men in his life been neither clubbers, nor dancers. He soft-shoed his way back toward his cubicle - carefully, lest he spill precious coffee - as would one who had heard the expression "dance like nobody is watching," and embraced it as "dance like you don't care who is watching."

But people _were_ watching.

Rather, people were watching the front elevator because it never occurred to any of them that the otter would decide to take the back stairs. In retrospect, nobody could explain why none of them thought to watch the back door, since most of them were aware that Giblet was known to occasionally come in the rear. This in spite of his vocal insistence that, "God would not have invented powered lifts if he had meant for otters to take the stairs." This was how Giblet made it almost all the way back to his desk before somebody noticed him and moved to intervene.

He slowed his pace to let the last ten seconds of his song play out before he had to remove his ear buds and return to the world of oppressive drudgery (or his _job_ as some were wont to call it). He paused, a few steps from the cubicle, bobbing his head to the last few beats when he felt somebody tugging at his left arm. Giblet was not a fan of surprise grabs. He jerked his arm free and cast a dirty look at the short dhole bitch who had latched onto him. Her maw was working furiously while she said something at him in such a rapid cacophony of words that, between her heavy Hindi accent and the blare of music from his earbuds, may as well have just been barking. The little canid was waving her arms very animatedly while she spoke, and she looked very earnest.

Giblet hit the pause button on his phone with a pinkie and hooked the same digit on the cord of his ear bud to pop it out, letting it dangle over the crook of his finger. "Prisha, slow down," he admonished.

The dhole took a deep breath. "You can't go back to your desk!" she blurted. She looked past the otter and raised her left arm over her head, waving frantically. "Over here! He's over here!"

"Why can't I go back to my desk? Was there a hazardous spill? I haven't let Plonq pack beans for lunch since ... that incident..." his voice trailed off when he saw that his words were going right past the canine's ears without meeting any resistance.

"Sir," The voice of Arjun rang out over the din of the office behind them, and the otter turned to see the red panda closing the distance between them with long, purposeful strides. "Giblet, please, I need you to walk with me." The panda jogged the last few paces between them and rested a hand gently on the mustelid's elbow. "There was some unpleasantness while you were away, and I am afraid we must ask you not to enter your work area until we have completed some investigation and cleanup."

"Unpleasantness," said Giblet with a note of trepidation creeping into his tone. "I don't know if I like the sound of that - especially the cleanup part." He craned his neck to try and see over the cubicle wall, but they were standing too far from the partition for him to see. Arjun gave his arm a light tug towards the front of the office.

"Come with me, sir," he said, addressing the otter as 'sir' in spite of being his superior. The panda used that tone with everyone. Plonq and Giblet had mused on that a few times, but could not come to a consensus on whether it was a cultural thing, or just a personal affectation. Giblet acquiesced and let his boss lead him towards the front, but as they passed the cubicle entrance, Giblet glanced into its interior and stopped dead in his tracks. The abruptness of his actions caught his escort off-guard. Arjun's hand slipped from Giblet's elbow, and Prisha walked at full-speed into his back.

Giblet lurched slightly at that, but he otherwise ignored both of them as his blood turned cold, and he felt the world contract around him as he stared into the cubicle. In the distance, he heard his boss admonish Prisha to return to her desk, but their exchange of words quickly faded to irrelevance as he took in the scene of carnage.

Plonq's workstation was a disaster; his chair was overturned, and the desk support was broken so that the table canted at a 60° angle. His left monitor was lying on the floor with a spider web crack across it, and his keyboard lay beside it. His red Swingline stapler was nowhere to be seen. The wolf's chair was also overturned, and though his work station appeared to have fared better, both of his monitors were tossed askew, his keyboard hung precariously off the end of his desk, and his mug lay shattered on the floor.

Also, there was also blood **everywhere**.

The otter's jaw gaped and his tail and whiskers drooped as he took in the scene through side eyes. It was the blood that drew his gaze, especially a single bloody hand print on the corner of the wolf's desk. "I..." he stammered. Giblet swallowed hard and tried again. " _What happened here?_ "

"Sir," said the panda, putting his hand on the otter's arm again. "Everyone is ok. Your friend is fine. There was a disagreement that went badly, but everyone is fine. Please," he said, and tugged gently again. "Walk with me. The company police do not want anybody to disturb the scene until they have had a chance to investigate. "

That jolted Giblet back to himself. He let his boss lead him toward the front of the office, but he kept glancing back over his shoulder as they walked.

"The police," he said in disbelief, and then before the panda could answer the otter began to machinegun his words. "What happened? Was there a fight? Are they in trouble? That's a lot of blood - are you sure they're both ok?"

"There was an argument, and then it became physical," said Arjun. He led the concerned otter between desks and down a short corridor toward one of the meeting rooms. "It broke up very quickly, but Plonq was cut during the altercation and Rahul is driving him to the ER as a precaution."

The otter jerked himself free of the other's hand again. " _They took him to ER?_ "

"Sir, I assure you it is just a precaution. He walked out under his own power, and under much protest that he did not feel that a trip to the Emergency Room was warranted." The panda stepped to the side and pushed open the door to Meeting Room 16. "Please try and make yourself comfortable in here. You know as much as I do at the moment about the incident, but I promise that I will give you updates. I know that you are concerned about your friend." He waved the otter forward with a couple meaningful curls of his palm. "I will let the police know that you are here. I believe one of the corporals wishes to speak with you.

The otter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Well, it's not the worst thing the snow kitty's been caught up in," he muttered. He strode into the room and flomped down into the chair nearest the door, resting both cups of coffee on the table. The otter quickly noticed three things about the meeting room; it was small, stuffy, and already occupied by another otter.

Joshua was sitting halfway along the table with his elbows resting on it while he cradled his temples with two fingers on either side. He didn't glance up or acknowledge the other otter until Giblet spoke.

"Oh, hey there," said Giblet. "It looks like we're going to be cell mates for a bit." The other otter jumped and his distant gaze seemed to come back into focus when he glanced at the speaker.

"Hi," he said. "Sorry if I seem a bit out of it here - this has been a ... interesting morning."

"Interesting, ya," agreed Giblet with a dry, humourless chuckle. "Rethinking your new career choice?" The younger otter just shrugged and looked miserable.

"It looks like I missed some excitement while I was away." Giblet sighed and peeled back the tab on his coffee. He was about to take a good swig of it, but his eyes fell on the unclaimed cup. He glanced over at the dazed-looking otter and back at the cup again before he slid it toward the younger mustelid.

"I don't know how you take your coffee, and I'm sure we would both prefer something stronger, but if you don't mind something all adulterated with sugar and espresso, this one is hot and fresh."

Joshua hesitated, and then gratefully reached over and took the coffee. "Were you bringing this one back for your boyfriend?" he asked.

If he had been trying to pick the worst time to ask that question, then he chose wisely because the older otter had just been tipping back his cup for an unadvisedly large swallow of the hot liquid. Giblet managed to simultaneously swallow coffee, inhale some of it, and spill a large glug down his furry chin and good coat. The otter sprayed an appreciable amount of coffee through his nose in the ensuing coughing fit, but he waved the younger otter away when the other expressed concern over him. When the fit subsided, Giblet stood and shrugged out of his coat so that he could brush and shake as much coffee as he could off of it.

"My _what_?!"

"I'm sorry," said Joshua quickly. "It's just that what they were saying, and I - well, the snow leopard..."

"...is my friend, and we live together, but he's not my _boyfriend_ ," said Giblet. He sighed as he hung his coat over the neighbouring chair. "It's complicated." He turned and eyed the other otter speculatively. "So you were close enough to hear some of what was going on over there?"

Joshua picked up his coffee with both hands and took a swig from it. "I was right there when it happened," he said. "I went over so that you could introduce me to your cubicle mates, but you had already gone for coffee." He took another sip and continued to cradle the cup. "I think I was the catalyst for their fight, but it sounds like there's been some bad blood between them for a while."

"Really," said Giblet. "I always thought they got on well enough." He tapped his fingertips together while he thought. "What were they fighting about?"

"You," said the young otter.

" _What!?_ " Giblet's voice raised an octave for the second time in as many minutes.

"The wolf started saying all sorts of nasty things about you and your boyf..." Joshua saw the other otter tense a bit and quickly corrected himself. "Your friend got defensive and started getting all up in his face about it. Apparently the wolf has issues with your, uh, sexual choices, and he decided the world needed to know." He took a long, slow sip of his coffee, but his eyes never left Giblet. It was clear that Joshua was debating on his next words. "So ... apparently you think I'm ... adorable?"

Giblet flinched as if he had been shot. He broke eye contact with the other otter and visibly wilted where he stood. He looked around as if he were seeking something for support before pulling the chair up behind himself and slowly lowering himself into it. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned forward until they were resting on the edge of the table.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I won't deny that I said it. That was a really inappropriate thing for me to say, and I _definitely_ didn't mean for it to get back to you, but I didn't mean it like..." he faltered and paused to collect his thoughts. Giblet continued talking, staring fixedly at the wall across from him while he spoke. "I was totally smitten with your spots," he said. "That's all I meant by it." He clenched and unclenched his fists. "Sometimes my meat hole blurts out things before my brain gets a chance to apply the proper filters. I mean, you're not an unattractive person, but I was talking about the tats."

"That's what your friend said, too," said the other otter quickly. "I'm sorry, I don't know what even made me bring it up."

Giblet shook his head sharply. "No," he said. "Don't be sorry - this isn't on you." He flung himself back in his chair and covered his eyes with his palms. "Oh god," he said softly, "I am feeling so embarrassed, and humiliated, and angry, and betrayed right now." He slumped back further into the chair, sliding lower in the seat. "I _hate_ having to walk on eggshells every time I open my mouth around this place because I can't trust somebody not to throw it back in my face or whisper it behind my back." The otter hooked his fingers like he was contemplating gouging out his own eyes, but he just kept his palms pressed against them with his digits clawed. "I hate this place, and the toxic people I have to work with. I hate the incompetent managers who let things fester, hoping they'll go away on their own."

A wan groan escaped the back of Giblet's throat. "I have calculated the exact number of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds until my earliest possible retirement date." He paused. "Well, the last two are kind of approximate because all the clocks in this place are one step removed from blinking 12:00. Seriously, if you know how to set a clock then I think you've got a job for life."

He drew a slow, deep breath and released it. "I'm sorry you got caught up in this shit show." The older otter opened a crack between his fingers and peered at Joshua between them. "But at least it happened on your first day, eh? Welcome to the fold, kid. I know I complain about this place, but this kind of thing _never_ happens." Giblet shrugged. "Today excepted."

The younger otter gave a nervous laugh. "Everybody keeps telling me 'this kind of stuff never happens here'. They are so insistent that a guy could almost start to believe them." He was sitting, slightly slumped in his chair with his elbow on the table and his chin resting on its upturned palm. "So, if this place is so bad, why don't you quit? You seem to be affable and talented enough to find a better job."

Giblet tipped his chair forward again so that he could reach his coffee. "I'm here for the same reason you came here - decent pay and great benefits." He turned the coffee cup in his hands a few times. "I know I make it sound bad, but I'm packing baggage stuffed with years of bitterness and disappointment. They really have made this a better place to work since I started here - in spite of themselves." He finally took a good swig of coffee and wiped his muzzle with the back of his free hand. "Also, I mentioned that I'm closer to retire than hire now. They have come close to getting rid of me so many times over the years that I'm too stubborn to go now. I'm not leaving without getting my share."

"Folks are serious about this kind of think not happening here though," he continued. "This is only the second physical altercation I've seen in the office in all the years I've been working here. At least the last time it was for something worth fighting for; the coffee fund." The two otters sat in silence for a couple of minutes, sipping their coffees and listening to the tick of the electromechanical clock mounted high on the back wall of the room. While Giblet appeared to be sinking into his inner thoughts, the young otter looked contemplative.

"A couple of people got physical about the coffee fund?"

"He accused me of not paying my share, even though I had a receipt from the lady running the fund," said Giblet primly. "He was all up in my face about it and totally asking for a punch in his smug, wolverine muzzle."

"You punched a wolverine?" Joshua's voice carried a hint of disbelief and respect.

Giblet nodded. "I'm not super proud of it, but I was a real hothead back in the day. I had lots of skeletons in the closet - including me. Anyway, it was a really good punch. He never expected it from a wimpy little otter like me, and it really rang his bell. Mind you, he beat the living shit out of me once he was over the shock; messed me up pretty bad." He coiled and uncoiled his fist. "I learned my lesson after that. Never use a fist when your tongue can hurt more. Anyway, they were going to fire me for it, even though most of the witnesses said that he provoked the punch. Fortunately I was still in the union back then, and they managed to get me back under a _second chance_ ruling when it went to arbitration."

"What about the other guy?"

"They fired him in absentia on his first full day in prison," said Giblet. "Anyway, I guess I should stop avoiding the topic. So... what happened? Why is everything broken and blood everywhere? All I know is they were shouting and then there's broken stuff and blood, but somehow they're both ok."

Joshua looked thoughtful, holding his coffee in one hand while he tapped the side of his muzzle with the index finger of his other hand. "Well," he said, "I don't know what set him off, but the wolf started going on about how you were getting all up in his face with _the gay_ , and the snow leopard got all defensive about you. That's when the wolf started claiming that you and your friend were, um..." He took a quick sip of coffee to reset his train of thought and continued. "Anyway, the wolf accused him of being the defender of faggots and stuff like that, then said something about how maybe the snow leopard would be giving you comfort sex when you got home."

"That's when your friend got all up in the wolf's face. He poked him in the chest and told him he was out of line. I didn't catch what the wolf said because he was kind of growling a lot at that point, but he shoved your friend back really hard. Then it all kind of happened really fast, but almost felt like it was in slow motion if you know what I mean."

Giblet nodded and twirled his hand for the younger otter to continue.

"Anyway, your friend kind of lost his balance and when he stumbled backward he accidentally stepped on his own tail. He yowled really loud, and he jumped and tripped over his chair when that happened, which I guess made him fall back onto his desk. He was out of my sight when that happened, but there was a terrible crunching noise, and his monitor kind of flew up in the air." He paused for breath and another sip. "I guess he must have hit his head on the monitor stand or something because the next thing I know I hear him snarl and come launching out of nowhere at the wolf with blood gushing from the side of his head. I thought for sure he was going to kill the wolf."

Joshua shuddered at the memory. "I mean, everything about him was screaming murder, but all he did was tackle the wolf and then sit on him and start yelling things like, 'Are you nuts? Get a grip!' and the wolf was all like, 'Oh my god, I am so sorry.' and 'Dude, you are bleeding everywhere.' Anyway, the wolf kept going on at your friend about how he was bleeding, so your friend kind of brushed the side of his face with his right hand and when he saw all the blood on his fingers he said ... uh ..."

"Ack." offered Giblet.

"Yes, that!" agreed the other otter. "So it ended up not being much of a fight after that. They both could stand up, but your friend was all wobbly and the wolf started calling for somebody who knows first aid because your friend was just kind of stumbling around babbling a bit and getting blood everywhere. Anyway, someone showed up with a whole roll of paper towels, and they kind of led them both in different directions before your boss whisked me here."

"I'm not surprised that it wasn't much of a fight," said Giblet with a wry chuckle. "Plonq is not much of a ... fighter. Also, he doesn't deal well with blood."

"Ya," agreed Joshua with a nervous chuckle of his own. "Poor guy. But he was really standing up for you before it all went bad."

"Yay," said Giblet flatly. "Thanks for the quick summary. I guess there will be an interesting topic of discussion when I get home tonight." The two otters lapsed into silence again to spend some time with their respective thoughts and coffees, though Giblet's ruminations kept flowing down troubling paths. He was just beginning to wonder if the two of them had been forgotten in the meeting room when there was a knock at the door. It swung open, admitting a uniformed puma into the meeting room, with Arjun close on his tail.

"I am sorry that we kept you two waiting so long," said the red panda quickly, "but as you might imagine, the actions this morning stirred up quite a bit of attention. We have been dealing with a lot of queries." He nodded toward the puma who had seated himself across from the younger otter, and was setting up his laptop on the table. "I shall leave you in the hands of Corporal Stewart for now. I must run for what I expect is going to be a very uncomfortable meeting with our vice president."

Arjun backed out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him. Meanwhile, the officer had his computer open and ready to go. He leaned across the table to the young otter and extended a hand. "Hi ... Joshua," he said hesitantly. The otter nodded and took the extended hand. "I'm Corporal Stewart with the company police force," continued the puma, "your first day here, eh? We really know how to welcome people to the fold."

Joshua tittered nervously and nodded.

"I'm just here to ask you guys a few questions," said the puma in a reassuring tone. "I promise I won't keep you long. I think we've already got most of it pieced together, and we're just looking to fill in a few gaps." He motioned toward the older otter with a flick of his head. "If you don't mind, I'd like to start with Giblet since I've only got a couple of questions for him."

"Oh, no, I don't mind," said Joshua. He started to stand, then hesitated and sat again. "Did you need me to step outside for this?"

The puma shook his head. "No, you are welcome to stay. I mean, if you need to step out to drain off some coffee or get some more, you're welcome to come and go as you need. I don't expect this whole process to take more than twenty minutes."

The younger otter glanced in Giblet's way, but the older otter gave him a reassuring nod and a quick downward wave with his left hand to let him know that he was welcome to stay.

The puma hunched over his laptop and began typing frantically. He paused, cast a critical glance in Giblet's direction and then typed some more. The cat put a hand on his wireless mouse and clicked the button a couple of times. He moved the mouse back and forth, then jiggled it furiously and tapped the button a few more times. With a soft growl, he rapped it on the table a couple of times causing its LED to flicker tentatively before it came to life. He typed a bit more and then turned his attention to Giblet.

"You work for IT, right?"

"Yes," said Giblet. "I've been in my current role for the past two years, but before that I was..."

"This isn't a formal question," said the puma, interrupting the otter in mid-stream. "I was just wondering if you could pull some strings to get me a mouse that works."

"Oh. Sorry. I don't work for _that_ part of IT. We have to deal with shitty mice too."

"Pity," said the puma. "OK, let's start. I don't need any of your details - we've got you on file enough times. So, tell me about what went down before you went for coffee. Were your two coworkers arguing before you left?"

"Not as such," replied the otter. "I mean, Larry was in rare form this morning, and I could see that Plonq was getting a bit irritated with him, but it really wasn't anything I'd expect them to come to blows over."

The puma spent a few moments frantically typing in the otter's response. "Could you please expand on what you mean by 'in rare form'?"

"He thinks I'm going to hell for having _the gay_ ," said Giblet dryly. "He seems to be under the impression that taking shots at me about my sexual orientation will somehow make me see the error of my way and go straight." He shrugged. "All it does when he takes his shots at me is make me take shots back at him. If he wants to play, I'm game. Otters are all about play."

Out of the corner of his eye, the puma saw the younger otter give a knowing nod.

"When you say he's 'taking shots' at you, do you mean that he is directing homophobic comments towards you?" asked the puma. Giblet nodded, and the constable continued. "Do you feel, or have you ever felt threatened in any way by his comments?"

"Um," the otter clasped his hands together under his chin and rested the latter on two extended index fingers. "That's kind of complicated," he said finally. "I mean, I used to feel a bit overwhelmed when I was surrounded by it, but the office demographic has gotten younger and more accepting over the years. Sure, sometimes Larry can get a bit irritating, but I've never felt _threatened_ by him. I've always seen him as a curmudgeonly kook more than a threat."

"Ok," said Corporal Stewart, typing furiously. "Can you give me an example of one of the exchanges that happened today?"

"Yes," said Giblet. "Right before I went for coffee." He made a vague waving gesture in the direction of the other otter. "When I came back from talking to Joshua, I mentioned how he'd unbuttoned his shirt partway to show me where his - very cool, I might add - tattoos blend into his natural fur colour. Larry latched onto that and made a lewd comment about how little time it took me to start undressing the new guy."

"I see," said the puma. When he had finished typing, he paused with his hands over the keyboard and said, "How did you respond to his comment?"

"I don't remember my _exact_ words, but it was something along the lines of asking why I'd need to undress a new person when I could just sit there and picture Larry naked any time I wanted."

"Wowzers," said the puma under his breath. He read the exchange back a couple of times while tapping his thumb on the blank space next to the keyboard's track pad. "What reaction were you hoping to elicit from him with your response?"

"To shut him up," said Giblet in a very matter-of-fact tone. "He usually clams up when he remembers that I can give it as good as I take. I can make him as uncomfortable as he makes me." He buffed his black mustelid claws on his shirt. "I've got a couple of real zingers that I've been holding in reserve in case he gets way out of line."

"Do you feel that this makes for a healthy work environment?"

"It's ... a work environment," replied Giblet after a moment of thought. "He's usually pretty good about keeping it to himself until something sets him off. He gets insufferable for about a week around the pride parade." The otter became more animated as he spoke, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "Maybe I'm inured to it because of how bad it used to be. At least I don't cry in my car before and after every shift now. Oh!" The otter stabbed the table firmly with his index finger. "I want it made _very_ clear in the official transcript of this conversation that I have _never actually pictured Larry naked_."

The other otter and the puma both laughed at this. Giblet crossed his arms. "I'm serious."

  * _End of part 2_




	3. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When one has potentially screwed up their life, I think one could pardon them for a little brooding.

**Tribulation**

Part 3 - Homecoming

_"The me that you know he had some second thoughts;_

_He's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore._

_The me that you know doesn't come around much._

_That part of me isn't here anymore."_

_\- Nine Inch Nails (The Becoming)_

Giblet quickly found that one of the downsides to having both of his cube mates missing was that he got a lot more work done - that is, he got a lot more work done when he logged out of the messenger application to stem the flood of coworkers wanting to know what had happened. This was also after he stopped himself from constantly glancing over his shoulder at the yellow tape that separated his little corner of order from the mess in the rest of their cubicle area.

The Facilities department had come in very quickly once the police had taken all of their pictures and measurements. Part of Plonq's desk was missing now, with just the bent stands remaining. Both chairs had been pushed into the unused corner of the cubicle, and five squares of the carpet had been removed. They had also taken away two of the fabric cubicle wall-panels that has been smeared with snow leopard blood.

Normally management frowned on employees wearing earbuds at their workstations, but they had - by unspoken agreement - understandably given the little otter a pass for the day. Giblet had the buds buried deep in his ear canals and his music was cranked to an unhealthy volume to drown out the uncomfortable silence behind him. It was only when he saw a hand waving at the periphery of his vision that he realized somebody was trying to get his attention. He paused the music and popped out the ear pieces when he saw who it was.

"Hey, Josh," he said. The older otter tilted back his chair and clasped his hands behind his head while he rotated his seat around to face the younger otter. "Still here, I see."

"Hi," said Joshua. "Ya, I'm still here." He laughed. "It was a close call earlier this morning, but the totally professional, but unprepared way in which they handled this thing convinced me that it really is an anomaly. Also, everyone here is just so gosh darned nice."

"That's because you're new," said Giblet with a quick wink at the other otter. "Give it six months and the safety caps come off our claws. That's when you start to realize that a lot of what you mistook for being nice is actually just passive-aggressiveness." He glanced at a sheaf of papers under the other otter's left arm. "Homework?"

Joshua looked puzzled for a moment then pulled out the papers. "These? Oh, this is for the pension options, vision and dental plans..." he paused. "Not to be rude, but when they started handing me all of these physical forms, I almost forgot what decade we were in. This was all electronic at my last place."

"It is here too," said Giblet. "I think they just want to get your physical signature for the first iteration." He cranked his head around, glancing over each of his shoulders and then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial hush. "We have some suits in the upper ranks here who live for pulling out pieces of paper and demanding, 'Is this _not_ your signature on this form agreeing to the terms that you now question?'"

Joshua laughed again. "I love how I can't tell if you're being serious or not," he said.

"I learned from a master," said Giblet, peeling away one of his hands and thumbing at the empty desk behind him. He sighed and sat upright again. "Me and him are going to have a serious chat when I get home."

"That's partly why I stopped by on my way out," said Joshua. "I'm sorry about the 'boyfriend' remark I made earlier. It was really presumptuous of me, and I could tell that it really upset you."

"I wasn't really upset about it," said Giblet, batting away the younger otter's concerns with a quick wave of his left hand. "If you asked around the office, I think you'd find that half of them think that Plonq and I are boyfriends with benefits, in spite of the fact that we're both actively dating other people of various genders." He picked up a well-chewed pen off his desk and began slowly flipping it back and forth through the fingers of one hand. "I was really upset about _everything_ earlier this morning, and I reacted a lot more strongly to your comment than I normally would. I've calmed down a lot." He chuckled. "Well, inasmuch as I can ever be considered calm. Just so you know, I am still screaming on the inside, so don't be alarmed if I accidentally externalize a bit of that without warning."

Giblet could have gone on at some length about his absent friend. He could have mentioned how he had first come out to the snow leopard - the first time he'd come out to anybody (besides family, which had not gone well) - because he'd had a crush on the cat, and mistaken the other's awkwardness and friendship for a deeper mutual interest. He'd have waxed on about how not only had the faux pas not driven the other way, but they'd become even closer, with the feline bending over backward to be supportive. He'd have told the young otter about how Plonq had taken Giblet in after he'd lost everything in a fire. How the cat had convinced him to march in his first Pride Day parade a couple of years later and even held his hand along the whole parade route to lend him courage.

But he barely knew the young otter, and didn't want to bore him with personal anecdotes. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his head again and said, "I think I speak for both of us when I say that I'm glad to have this morning behind us."

"And how," agreed Joshua emphatically. "Well, good luck. Wish your friend luck as well when you see him later today. He seemed very nice, and I hope he comes out of this ok."

"Thanks," said Giblet. As Joshua turned to leave, Giblet glanced at his desk phone and noted the time. It was very near the end of his day, and he had not yet heard any word on the snow leopard's condition. He had hoped that Plonq might call him from the hospital, but he also understood that the cat probably had other matters on his mind. Plonq also had the car keys, which left Giblet in the position of figuring out an alternate way to get home.

Fortunately, the logistics of getting home were resolved for him when Rahul wandered by his desk ten minutes later and gave him Plonq's car keys.

"Plonq said to give you these," said the lanky mongoose as he put the keys on the corner of Giblet's desk. "I dropped him off at home after we left the hospital."

"How's he doing?" demanded Giblet, snatching up the keys as he spoke.

"He's a little shaken up, but he's going to be ok," said Rahul. "The bleeding had mostly stopped by the time they finally got around to treating him. They put on a butterfly bandage and sent him home with some pain killers. They said he has no sign of a concussion."

"Oh, well that's some good news!" Giblet glanced at the time again. "Holy crap - you guys left this morning. You were in ER with him the whole time?"

"I wasn't just going to _leave_ him there," said the mongoose primly, as if he was offended that the idea had even been considered.

* * *

When Giblet arrived home, he found the snow leopard in the living room in a messy, supine sprawl on the corner of the sofa. The cat had one arm draped over the back of the sofa, and the other draped over its arm with his left foot resting on the coffee table. On the selfsame table were a small prescription bottle and an open scotch. As near as the otter could tell, his friend had been staring blankly out the front window before the mustelid had interrupted him. Even then, the snow leopard remained ostensibly motionless, moving only his eyes to track Giblet as he entered the room.

"Hi," said Giblet tentatively.

"Hullo," said Plonq. He lifted his hand from the back of the couch and gestured toward his head. "Unfortunately, it looks like I am going to survive."

Giblet glanced at the languid feline, then at the open bottle of scotch and the pills on the table. "What's with the scotch," he asked with a gerbil of concern gnawing at his gut from the inside. Now that he was standing in the living room, the smell of alcohol was fairly prominent. "Tell me you're not mixing those."

"Oh," said Plonq. "Well, they gave me some pain killers at the hospital and told me to take them with liquid. They did not specify _which_ liquid and it occurred to me that scotch qualifies as one." The cat shrugged. "Then I figured that in large enough quantities, scotch also acts as a pain killer, and I could just skip the pills entirely."

Giblet tutted in disapproval and picked up the bottle, slamming the cork back into the top. He held it up and noticed that it was two thirds empty. "Christ, how much of this did you drink?" he demanded. "Am I going to have to take you right back to ER for alcohol poisoning?"

Plonq seemed to consider the question. He glanced over at his left hand on the back of the couch and began counting off fingers. "Well, if you discount how much was missing from the bottle when I brought it out here, and how much is left now..." He extended four fingers one after another. "I had, uh, a tiny sip and then decided to take one of the pills instead. I just had not got around to putting the cork back in."

"You _are_ a prick," said Giblet in something between a growl and a laugh of relief. He stepped around the coffee table and threw himself into the opposite corner of the sofa, placing the bottle on the end table beside him as he sat. He reached back and slapped the feline's arm off the back of the sofa angrily. "So, why didn't you call once you got home? You know me well enough to know that I'd be worried sick about you!"

"Sorry," said Plonq with genuine-sounding contrition. He crossed his arms loosely over his chest and gently massaged his biceps as he shifted himself upright on the sofa. "I have kind of been lost in my own brain since I got home." The snow leopard drew a deep breath and gave a slow, trembling exhalation. "I am probably going to get fired."

"No, you're not," said the otter. He slid over a cushion to the right so that he was sitting next to his friend. He punched the snow leopard gently, but firmly in the upper arm. "They're not going to fire you for a first offense after you've been there that long. No - stop. Don't you sit there and shake your head at me!"

"They have a zero-tolerance policy for physical violence," said Plonq. "I tackled him pretty hard." He shuddered, and when he spoke next his voice trembled a bit. "I lost my senses for the briefest moment there, and when I pounced at him I think I was going for his throat. When I had him down, and I was sitting on his chest and he was staring up at me, I could see that he thought I was going to kill him." The cat drew another long breath. When he spoke again it was barely over a whisper. "I think ... I guess ... at that moment I was more scared of me than he was. I have never lost control like that. Everyone says I was yelling a bunch at him, but I have no memory of that." He glanced over at the otter and met his eyes. "He really pissed me off, but I have never lost control like that before."

"About that," said Giblet flatly. "Please understand that what I am about to say is said with as much love and respect as is legally allowed in a nonsexual relationship but..." The otter reached over and clamped a hand under the snow leopard's chin to prevent the other from breaking eye contact. "Don’t you ever ... fucking _ever_ pull that shit again. I'm a big boy, and I can fight my own fights. I don't need you being my white knight and putting your neck on the line for me - especially when it could cost you your livelihood." He let go of Plonq's chin and sat back again. "I mean it. Bandage my wounds and offer me words of support, but let me fight my own fights. You're my friend, not my bodyguard."

He watched as the snow leopard dropped his hands to his lap and fiddled with them, massaging one hand over the other while he mulled on the otter's words. The cat glanced at the otter out of the corner of his eye, but stayed mum when he sensed that the otter was not done speaking yet. The snow leopard stared down at his hands again.

To the otter's own great surprise, he quickly leaned in and kissed the snow leopard on the cheek.

"Thank you, though," said Giblet gently. A hint of tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. "I'm really touched and humbled that you were willing to throw yourself so totally into my defense. Sometimes I get the feeling that you genuinely like me." He quickly held up a hand to the snow leopard's muzzle when he saw that the cat was about to speak.

"Not a word until you take off your shirt," said the otter. He rose and stepped in front of the snow leopard while the latter started sheepishly unbuttoning it. "Give me your undershirt too, while you’re at it. Seriously, you've been home for at least two hours and you're still wearing that shirt with all the blood on it?"

"It is already ruined," said Plonq defensively as he shrugged out of the layers. "It just seemed like wasted effort to bother changing out of it until I was ready to put on something else."

Giblet grimaced and shook his head disapprovingly at the feline. He took the garments and held them critically up to the light. "You're probably right about them being a loss," he said, "but it can't hurt to put them on to soak. I'll take care of that, since you're hopeless at these things." The otter bundled the shirts up and tossed them onto the armchair. He leaned forward and inspected the snow leopard's exposed fur. "At least it didn't soak all the way through." He started to raise his arms, hesitated and quickly lowered them again. "Ya, it looks fine."

"A shame, really," said Plonq sadly, "that was one of my favourite shirts." He glanced at the wad of clothes, then back at the otter standing in front of him. Giblet seemed to be in the beginnings of a mild trance as he stared fixedly at the feline's bare torso. The cat lifted his hand to the arm of the sofa and rhythmically tapped his fingers along it. He cleared his throat politely.

Giblet made brief eye contact with the snow leopard, and then he looked longingly back down at the cat's midriff. "May I?" he wheedled. "I promise it will just be a quickie."

Plonq sighed. "OK, fine. Just try not to make it ... weird," said the snow leopard

Giblet dropped to his knees and leaned forward, and then he paused with his arms outstretched. "What do you mean by 'don't make it weird?" he demanded.

"You _know_ what I mean," said Plonq dryly. "I mean no suggesting moaning, and no burying your muzzle in my solar plexus for a good sniff. Get in, get your fix and get out."

Giblet giggled. "Would I do _that_?" he asked innocently. "I can't help it if I love the smell of cats." He leaned forward and buried his outstretched hands in the snow leopard's thick belly fur. The otter lost himself in a few moments of bliss as he gently petted and kneaded the fur. "It's _amazing_ ," he breathed. "It's so thick and soft and fluffy! How can you _not_ spend all of your waking hours doing this?"

The snow leopard chuckled, sending a pleasing vibration through the thick fur. "You have no idea what I do in my room at night," he said, eliciting a return laugh from the otter.

After a couple of minutes, Giblet was sated enough to pull his hands back and rise to his feet again. He gathered up the snow leopard's shirt and undergarment into his arms. "OK, I'm going to go put these on to soak," he said. "Also, I'm starving. I worked right through lunch. I don't know what we've got in the cupboard at the moment, but I can toss something together for us."

Plonq shook his head and sighed. "We grabbed a little snack on the way home from the hospital, and I ... am lacking in appetite at the moment," he said.

The otter nodded, understanding. "Well, I'll make a bit extra and put it in the fridge in case you change your mind later." He started toward the hall, and stopped again at the threshold. "You know," he said thoughtfully as he hugged the garments in his arms a little tighter, "I think I know why we get along so well. You let me run my hands through your belly fur without getting weirded out by it, and you just accepted it as 'Giblet being Giblet' when I gave you that sloppy kiss on your cheek. Most guys would have freaked out if their friend did that."

"Well, it is a quid pro quo thing," said Plonq. "You get to run your hands through luxurious fur, and I get a belly rub." He blinked as the otter's words continued parsing in his head. "Wait, you kissed me...?"

"Obviously you would remember it if I'd done such a thing," said Giblet glibly. He turned to leave again, calling over his shoulder as he scurried out. "I'll put these on to soak, and then be in the kitchen fixing some otter delicacies if you need anything." Out of the corner of his eye he saw the snow leopard rubbing his cheek with a puzzled expression.

* * *

It was almost ninety minutes later when Giblet returned to the living room bearing two tall cups of steaming faux hot chocolate, each brimming with marshmallows. He found the snow leopard sitting in the same corner of the sofa, leaning against the arm of it with his knees pulled up under his chin.

"I brought you a little something. Even if you're not hungry, there's always room for fake hot chocolate," said the otter, handing one of the mugs to the cat.

Plonq accepted the mug and sat it on his knee, holding it there with one hand while he tentatively poked at one of the marshmallows with an extended claw on his other. In the meantime, Giblet perched on the edge of the armchair with his knees crossed and took a sip of his own drink.

"So what are the next steps?" Giblet asked. "Is there anything I can do for you at the office to help?"

Plonq paused in his attempts to spear a marshmallow. "Oh," he said, "I am going to be coming in on Thursday morning to meet with the inquisition. Arjun called Rahul while we were waiting in ER and said he needed to talk to me if I was available." He finally managed to capture the prize he was after, and he delicately licked it off the tip of his claw. "He told me to show up at work if I was available for 9:00 on Thursday, or to suggest another time if that did not work. He said they want to get this handled quickly."

He made a stab at another marshmallow, but it just bobbed elusively away every time he tried. "I had to surrender my phone and pass card to Rahul." The cat gave up trying to catch his prey and just stirred the floating confections with the extended claw. "I had to give him my corporate credit card and authenticator too while I was at it," he said. "You _know_ things are serious when they take your RSA device."

"That's just standard procedure," said Giblet quickly. He took another nip from his fake chocolate without ever taking his eyes from the snow leopard. "And it's good that they're trying to resolve it quickly. The sooner they get this mess out of the way, the quicker we'll have you back at work."

Plonq glanced up at the otter, and then just shrugged and returned his attention to his hot drink. "Actually, I think the speed of this is a bad sign because it means that they have already made up their minds about the outcome."

The cat had a point, but Giblet refused to concede. "They're not just going to let you go," he said firmly. "I know that Arjun really likes you. He's pretty respected there, and he won't give you up without a fight."

"Maybe," said Plonq. He sighed, and sadly shook his head. "I keep replaying this morning in my head, trying to come up with other ways that it could have gone. There were so many paths I could have chosen that did not involve screwing up, but I managed not to take those."

"It'll work out," said the otter firmly. "Look, I'm on your side. You've helped me get through so many things over the years; I can't _not_ be here to help you through this."

"Thanks," said the snow leopard, glancing back up at his friend briefly. "That means a lot."

"Is there anything I can help with right now?"

Plonq shook his head. "Maybe tomorrow," he said. "I need some time alone out here to wallow. I would stew, but I am pretty much past that phase."

Giblet uncoiled himself from the armchair and walked over to the end of the couch. He clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder and gave it a couple of reassuring squeezes. "OK, I'll leave you here to wallow," he said. "I'm going to head back to my room to watch some porn - or whatever it is I do in there when I have the door closed. If you changed your mind about needing anything, just come back and knock."

Plonq patted the otter's hand. "Thanks," was all he said.

* * *

Giblet woke at just shy of three o'clock the next morning with a bladder that had a mind to punish him for drinking hot chocolate so close to bed time. He reluctantly slid out from under the sheets into the relative cold of his bedroom and tip-toed out into the hall. As he rounded the corner toward the bathroom, he saw light streaming from the living room. He considered dashing back to his room for pants so that he could check on the situation out there, but his initial purpose in venturing out was more pressing.

Once he had dealt with his personal issue, the otter donned a tatty pair of sweat pants and made his way to the front room to see if Plonq had accidentally left the light on when he'd gone to bed. When he rounded the corner, he found the snow leopard in the same corner of the couch. The cat was fast asleep, draped over the arm and snoring softly. Giblet shook his head in awe at the feline's ability to sleep in a position that would have left most species crippled by the morn.

A mug of cold chocolate - untouched save for a vague indentation in the sticky foam where a marshmallow had once been - sat on the table by the lamp. The otter strode lightly out of the room and returned a minute later with a blanket that he gently draped over the cat. Plonq muttered and shifted slightly at the touch of the blanket, but snored again a few seconds later.

Giblet turned off the lamp and tip-toed back to bed.

  * _End of part 3_




	4. Trial of a Snow Leopard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes there is a fine line between doing the right thing, and doing the smart thing. Other times the line is not so defined, but either way, be ready to own your choices.

**Tribulation**

Part 4 - Judgement Day

_"I'm not afraid_

_And I won't lie_

_As long as I see no wrong_

_I won't need to testify"_

_\- Alan Parsons Project (Standing On Higher Ground)_

Many religions, past and present, have subscribed to their own mythos of a final judgement day. Most have tended to be very vague about the timing, citing it as "coming soon" or "when our deity is good and ready for it". Others have proved to be more flexible - such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who predicted the day of judgement in 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, and a few more times before they decided to take a break from scheduling future judgement days in the late 1990s. Some made specious claims that the Aztecs believed the world was going to end very specifically on December 21, 2012 (it did not - though many true believers held out hope until the date finally cycled through the last of the time zones).

Plonq, on the other hand, knew the precise date and time of his judgement, and he showed up to meet it exactly fifteen minutes early.

As promised, Arjun was waiting for him by the front entrance. The little red panda greeted him with two steaming cups of coffee and a hearty, "Good morning!" He held out one of the paper cups to the snow leopard. "It is black," he said, "but we have some time to stop by the cafeteria if you wish to adulterate it with other fixings."

"Black is fine, thanks," said Plonq absently as he accepted the offered cup. He had drunk so much coffee before he'd left home that he was reasonably sure he'd have to mainline caffeine to get any more benefit from it. The butterflies that were spawning in his stomach as the hour of his meeting approached also made him doubt if he could drink more coffee anyway.

"You look good today, sir," said the panda. Arjun waved his card past the reader and hip-checked the large "accessibility" button to open the door. He stepped aside as the door swung open and held out an arm to wave the snow leopard through ahead of him. "I have never seen you wearing a tie before. Did you buy it especially for today?" The panda chuckled. "Perhaps it will help your case. Dressing smartly can never harm one's cause."

Plonq felt anything _but_ well-dressed. He was not comfortable in neckties at the best of times, but his winter coat had grown in, which made the process of doing up the top button and cinching on a tie an appreciable feat in engineering. He'd finally managed to wiggle the shirt collar into the dense fur around his Adam's apple, and forced the button through the hole along with enough fur to ensure it would never move again on its own. By the time he'd put on the tie, the fur above his collar had puffed out with enough zeal to resemble an Elizabethan ruff.

The snow leopard was grateful that his director had led them the long way around the office in order to avoid most of the work areas, but he still heard a faint buzz behind him as they passed and heard his name whispered more than once. Plonq could not blame his coworkers for treating him like a spectacle; nobody loved a train wreck as much as folks who worked in the industry, and seeing a dead cat walk by was the next best thing.

If the otter had gotten his way, he'd have been walking with the feline this morning. Giblet had fussed over the cat mercilessly before Plonq had finally chased him off to work. He assured the otter that he could find his own way to the office, and that while he was sure that his friend would probably be a wonderful advocate and character witness, he did not believe they would allow the mustelid into the meeting. "There is no point in _both_ of us getting fired," he'd said as he shooed the otter out the door. Even if he'd thought they would let Giblet into the meeting, Plonq was not sure how much assistance his earnest, hot-headed roommate would help his case if he were present.

On the other hand, having the otter at the meeting would inarguably make it more _fun_. Or rather, "fun."

The two of them walked in silence, winding their way to the red panda's private cubicle. Arjun spent a couple of minutes listening to, and then deleting voicemails that had accumulated in the short time he had been away to greet Plonq at the door. When he was done, he leaned around the corner of his desk and called to an arctic fox in the next cubicle over.

"Art, don't forget that you will have to lead nine o'clock scrum today. If you don't mind, sir, would you please also lead the nine-thirty?"

"Uh, sure," said the fox. He cast a quick glance in Plonq's direction, and then looked back at their boss. "How long do you expect your meeting to last? Do you think you'll need me to handle the ten-thirty?"

"If it goes well, I expect to be back in about an hour," said the red panda.

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then I will be back in about ten minutes," said Arjun matter-of-factly.

Plonq was not sure if the director was joking or not, but his tail puffed visibly at those words.

"Come, sir," said the little red panda with a gentle tap on the snow leopard's elbow. "The others should be waiting for us in the meeting room now." As they got out of earshot of the fox, he said in a lower voice, "You are very quiet."

"I'm just wondering if I should have brought a union rep," said Plonq after a long hesitation. He was not sure if it was the right thing to say to his boss, but he wanted to get it out there and let the panda know his mind.

"You are not in the union..." replied his boss with a questioning tone.

"I've kept up my dues," said Plonq. The other mulled on those words while they walked the length of the building toward their appointed room.

"I believe I understand," said Arjun finally. "You wish to keep open that option in case the meeting does not go well." As they neared the room, he clapped a hand on Plonq's shoulder and stopped him a few feet short. "Sir, I will not lie and say that this meeting will be easy or pleasant. You gentlemen caused a great deal of consternation with your ill-advised quarrel, but I am cautiously optimistic about the outcome."

"Workplace violence is a firing offence," said Plonq glumly.

"I am cautiously optimistic," insisted Arjun. As he had done by the front entrance, he stepped to the side and allowed the snow leopard to enter first.

As he entered the meeting room, Plonq found it occupied by a mix of people who he knew, and those who he did not. He recognized his department's Vice-President at the far end of the table. The lanky Doberman was hunched in his chair, holding his phone in both hands and tapping furiously with his thumbs. He acknowledged the entrance of the snow leopard with a furtive glance up from his phone and an annoyed flick of one of his fashionably-clipped ears.

Around the corner of the table to the VP's left was the department's Assistant Vice-President, a young coyote who carried herself with the air of one who knew her career was on a fast track. Across from her sat a raccoon whom Plonq assumed was from HR, based on the array of binders and folders spread on the table in front of her. Finally, to her left sat a burly, middle-aged polar bear jammed into a police uniform.

"I believe you know most of us in this room," said Arjun stepping up beside the snow leopard. "To our right we have Jennifer, who is our director of HR." The raccoon nodded politely, and Arjun continued. "To our immediate right is Sergeant Brian."

"How you doing," said the bear, leaning forward and extending a hand. Plonq politely took the politely and gave it a tentative shake.

"I'm, uh, here," he mewled.

With the brief introductions out of the way, the coyote quickly sprang into action. "Arjun, please close the door and everybody get seated so that we can start. The sooner we are done here, the sooner we can all get back to work." She waited until Plonq and his boss were seated, then she turned to the VP on her left. "Did you have anything you wanted to say to start things off, Bob?"

The Doberman had set aside his phone and was now leaning forward with his elbows on the table and his left fist clenched in his right hand. "I'll defer to Sergeant Brian for the moment," he said with a hint of growl in his voice. "Why don't you take care of your business now so that we can let you out of here?"

"Thank you," said the polar bear with a terse nod toward the VP. He turned his attention to Plonq. "So I finally get to meet the tackler of wolves. You've been quite a topic of conversation around the coffee maker," he said. Sergeant Brian tapped the side of his own head on which the snow leopard's was bandaged. "How's your head?"

Plonq gently touched the bandage beside his temple. "It is getting better," he said. "I did not have to take any pain killers for it this morning."

"Good, good," said the polar bear. He pulled an old moleskin notebook out of his jacket pocket and made a point of flipping through it. "OK," he said when he finally reached the page of interest, "in talking with you, and other witnesses to the altercation, we believe that your actions in this respect were largely defensive in nature, intended to immobilize rather than injure. Do you agree with this depiction of the events, and your motivations?"

"Yes sir," lied Plonq. In his mind, he replayed the wide-eyed, terrified visage of the wolf as he saw the snarling feline leaping at his throat.

The polar bear nodded, and grunted a couple of times to himself as he made some ticks in his book. "Under the circumstances we don't think there is any value or point in filing battery charges against you." He glanced up from his notebook. "Larry, on the other hand..."

"I don't think he intended to hurt me," said Plonq quickly.

"While intent is a factor," said the sergeant, "it is not the deciding factor in all cases. In this case, the wolf was the aggressor, and caused potentially grievous injuries by his actions. Do you wish to pursue battery charges against him?"

"I don't think he meant to hurt me," repeated the snow leopard. "Larry didn't expect me to fall over my own tail."

"It's a yes or no question, sir," said the polar bear in an admonishing tone.

Plonq drew a long breath and released it. "No," he said at last. "I do not wish to press charges against him. I just want this whole thing behind me." The snow leopard felt the air in the room palpably lighten the moment the words left his mouth.

"OK," said Sergeant Brian brightly. He made another tick in his notebook and scribbled a quick note before he closed it and jammed both book and pen back into his inside pocket. "This does not preclude the department from pursuing charges against him at our discretion, but we will take your wishes into consideration when we make a decision on the matter." He turned to address the others at the table. "I've got what I needed here," he said.

"Thanks, Brian," said the coyote.

The polar bear stood and walked around the table toward the door, but he stopped at the end and extended his hand toward Plonq again. The snow leopard accepted the grasp. "Thanks again," said the bear before he leaned in closer. "Good luck," he added softly. The moment that the bear left the room and closed the door quietly behind himself, all eyes turned to the Vice President at the far end of the meeting table.

The Doberman sat upright in his chair and removed his wire-rimmed glasses. He slowly lowered them to the table and then rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Pardon me if I yawn," he said, "but this has been a long week. Let me tell you about my week."

The VP pushed himself up from the table with both hands, which he clasped behind his back as he began to pace at the end of the table. "The week started off great! I came in on Monday to an inbox full of praise over our new hot-maintenance procedure on Sunday. We've been working on this for months, and it went off without a hitch. Our weekend staff were thrilled that they didn't lose three hours of productivity while we took the systems down for maintenance. Huge success." He unclasped his hands long enough to massage his brow before he continued pacing with them behind his back. "Then I get an IM from my boss, asking me to come and see him immediately, and I'm thinking _wow, it's hard to get the big guy's attention when most of what we do flies under his radar._ " A short growl escaped from the back of the Doberman's throat. "Oh, we got his attention all right.

"The first words out of our CEO's mouth when I step into his office are _Can you explain why there is blood all over the floor of my IT department?_ Of course, I'm just standing there gawking at him like an idiot because nobody fucking thought to tell me about it." He paused dramatically. "Let that sink in. I had to learn about a serious incident _in my own department_ from the head of our company. I promise you that the fun did not increase from there. I don't know if you have ever been gored by a warthog, but let me tell you that having one tear you up one side and down the other in his office is not an experience to cherish."

"He kept at me with questions I couldn't answer. How could _he_ knew what was going on in my own department before _I_ did? Was I aware that my group had just ruined what was on track to be the company's first year with no reportable, lost-time incidents? This guy lives and breathes safety, and he took this as a personal affront. Had my people not completed the mandatory training in workplace respect and conflict resolution? Did he need to find somebody who could run a department where the staff were not out to kill each other?"

"He told me that the next time he saw me in his office, he wanted me to have an actionable plan on how I would be addressing the apparent hostilities brewing in my department, and confirmation that I'd fired both of the assholes involved." He pointed at Plonq. "And by that, he meant you and the dipshit dog - who's not my problem anymore."

The pacing dog flopped back down into his chair and leaned back with his hands clasped across his stomach and the thumbs pressed together into a peak. "So tell me, why shouldn't I fire you?"

"I..." Plonq began, but he hesitated and gesticulated as if trying to pull the right words from the air. "I cannot, sir," he said finally. "I am very sorry that I brought shame on our department, and personal embarrassment on you. While I would like to try and excuse my actions as coming to the defense of one who is dear to me, I acknowledge that I acted in anger rather than stepping back and letting those more qualified deal with it. If I could roll back time, I would have handled the situation very differently."

The meeting room fell silent after the feline spoke, and all eyes were again on the Vice President, who was staring silently up at the clock over the door. The silence dragged on while he twiddled his thumbs in thought before he finally broke it. "Any kid over the age of three knows that you don't touch a hot element," he said finally. "You walk away and wait for that fucker to cool down before you start poking it with your finger. You may not have been the aggressor in this thing, but it was your finger that triggered it."

The wolf stood again. "You apologized, and I'll give you credit for that if nothing else." He turned to his assistant. "Hanna, I'll leave you to deal with the rest of this. I have to go meet with Facilities again to finalize some of the cleanup from this mess." He snatched up his phone from the table, shoved his chair in solidly and walked purposely toward the door. He stopped as he was passing the snow leopard and clamped a firm hand on the feline's shoulder. "Don't feel like you've won something here," he said darkly. "The only reason Brian left without escorting you off the property is because I can't afford to lose two of my top developers with so many projects coming up at once." He pulled his hand free, and then paused again at the door. "You are on very, _very_ thin ice, sir." When he pulled the door closed behind himself, he did so with enough force to emphasize that it was only a deep self-restraint that kept him from slamming it.

"Well, that was ... awkward," said Hanna. The sound of relieved sighs around the room echoed her sentiment. Her tone turned cool. "Plonq, I hope you appreciate how hard Arjun and I worked to ensure we didn't lose you too. Don't make us regret that."

"Too," said Plonq. His whiskers dropped, and his ears lay flat as the meaning of those words sunk in. "Larry..."

"Larry is no longer with the company," said the coyote.

Out of the corner of his eye, Plonq caught a small hand-wave by his director that he interpreted to mean, "I'll fill you in on the details later." Not for the first time, the snow leopard appreciated his director's inability to keep a secret.

"If I may," said Jennifer without prompting. The raccoon from HR opened one of the folders in front of her and extracted a printout that she slid across the table toward Plonq. "Could you please identify this for the rest of the room?"

Plonq glanced at the piece of paper and swallowed hard. "It is a screen print from the online course on 'Maintaining a Respectful Workplace'," he said, reading the caption aloud.

"Can you please read the acknowledgement and completion credits at the bottom of the page?"

"Completed and acknowledged by Plonq in May of this year," said the snow leopard softly. The raccoon slid another sheet his way, and sensing the pattern involved, the snow leopard read it aloud without awaiting instructions. "Violence in The Workplace," he read aloud, "Completed and acknowledged by Plonq in March of this year."

"Employee Code of Ethics," he read as she slid over another page, "Completed and acknowledged by Plonq in December of last year."

"There you go," said Hanna drily. The coyote had tilted back in her chair and turned it at an angle to the table so that she could rest her left arm along the its top and rap her fingers rhythmically against its veneered surface. "We gave you all the guidance you should need to avoid this conflict, yet you managed to ignore all of it when it applied the most. Can you explain why you would go off half-cocked on somebody when you should, at best, have been tangentially involved?" She turned back to face the table and slapped it with her palms. "Why didn't you just walk away?"

" _Because I got tired of turning the other cheek to the playground bully,_ " said Plonq with so much snarl and emphasis in his voice that he even startled himself. He was about to check himself and apologize for the outburst, but his brain was starting to catch up with 'appreciate how hard Arjun and I worked to ensure we didn't lose you', and he decided to press on under the assumption that he was surrounded by allies.

"He never let up," said the snow leopard. His tail began to thump in sympathetic anger as he recalled the last few months in the office. "He has always exchanged barbs with Giblet, but lately he has literally haranguing him, both to his face and behind his back. I was not trying to pick a fight with Larry; I was trying to get him to rein in his behaviour as much for his own good as for anyone else's. I guess he broke the final straw when he started trashing my best friend in front of a new person, and I got on his case about it. Then he made it personal, and I ... reacted badly."

The snow leopard paused to collect his thoughts, but nobody else spoke during the pause. He took that as a good sign, and he continued. "I understand that it was not my place to get up in his face on behalf of my friend, but I know what Giblet has struggled with over the years, and I could not find it in my conscience to stand aside for a homophobic bully." He crossed his arms defensively across his chest, and a muttered aside. "I cannot believe I was the only one who was irritated by Larry's recent behavior."

"You're not." The coyote suddenly looked very tired. She ran her hands down the sides of her face and muzzle, stopping with the palms pressed together under her chin. "We'd fielded a number of complaints about his behaviour lately."

"We were building a case," said the raccoon, sounding equally fatigued. "Hanna, Arjun, and I were working on an action plan to deal with him."

" _Were_ ," said Hanna, emphasizing the word strongly. "We were approaching it from a behavioural standpoint because he was a skilled employee of relatively long standing."

"Twenty-six years," said Arjun.

Hanna shook her head. "We were hoping to salvage a working relationship with him by letting him modify his behaviour. The end result may have been the same, but I guess it's moot now."

Plonq's tail began to thrash again, this time out of disbelief rather than anger. He panned the room with his head, looking at each of the tired-looking managers surrounding him. The cat turned to address the AVP. "How long does it take to formulate an action plan?" he asked, aghast. "I have seen you move very quickly on things, and this has gone on for months. Why were you letting it fester?"

The coyote scoffed. "It's all well for you to sit here and accuse us of letting things fester when you never filed a complaint about him yourself. Do you think Arjun kept scheduling you for one-on-one meetings this year because he wanted to talk about the weather? He specifically asked you on more than one occasion if everyone was getting along. He was trying to get you to talk about Larry without active prompting."

"I am not one to..." said Plonq, but he tailed off without finishing the thought. The Coyote's point cut pretty deeply, and he knew that he had to acknowledge to himself that he had been enabling the wolf's behavior as much as anyone else.

"You wanted to confront the bully rather than be a snitch," said the Coyote. When the snow leopard just shrugged and hung his head slightly, she pressed on. "If we are going to continue a working relationship with you, then you need to drop your schoolyard sensibilities."

The room fell dead again. Plonq spent many long moments staring at his hands, with the occasional twitch of his tail or whiskers revealing a battle with his inner thoughts. When the silence began threatening to stretch in to the awkward zone, Hanna spoke again.

"Is there anything else you'd like to add?" she said coolly.

"I am just absorbing your words," said Plonq with a shrug. "You are right - I should have reported him. I can only speak for me, but I should have encouraged Giblet to report him as well. He has been burnt so many times in the past though that it is very hard for me to fault him for not speaking up about Larry's antics."

"This is not the past," said coyote in a gentler tone. "People like Larry are the outliers now, not your friend. You guys need to shake off your lifeboat mentality and learn to reach out. When you don't report these things, you are just enabling them."

"Can you talk to Giblet about it?" Arjun walked over and patted Plonq lightly on the shoulder. "It is not our place to bring this up with him, but as his friend, maybe you can help him learn to trust his team. I believe there is an old otter adage that goes, 'we swim stronger when we swim together'."

Plonq nodded, but said nothing.

The raccoon pushed a small folder over to the snow leopard and bumped his hand with it a couple of times to get his attention. Plonq glanced up at the folder and pulled it over to the table in front of him. He glanced at the folder, then up and the raccoon and down at the folder again. "What is... this?"

"That is part of the conditions of your continued employment," said the AVP. "We had to make some concessions to Bob before he agreed not to fire you. You will not be returning to work next week - it will be time off without pay to count as a suspension on your permanent record. You will receive non-achieves on all of your development goals this year, which means no bonus, and no rise within your salary grade. A second year of this rating in the next five years will result in a review of your continued employment."

The coyote nodded toward the folder in front of the snow leopard. "You will be required to take a remedial course on anger management before the end of the year. This will be on your time, at your expense - don't worry, it's not an expensive course - and you will need to have the forms in that folder filled out by the course instructor." She winked. "There's a course available next week if you want to get it out of the way while you have time."

Plonq leafed through the folder and mewled pathetically. "This course looks really boring," he lamented.

"Sir, it is _brutal_ ," said Arjun, "but it is what it is." He reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a card which he slapped on the table in front of the snow leopard, holding it down with his palm while he continued speaking. "I will be hanging onto your phone and RSA device until you return to work the week after next." The little red panda leaned in close and whispered, "You _owe_ me for this. Naturally I do not demand repayment, but remember come Christmas that I _do_ enjoy good single malt."

He slid his hand free of the card and stepped back.

The coyote stood and stretched, and as if following her cue, the snow leopard and raccoon mirrored her action. "We'll call this a wrap," she said. "Plonq, you're free to go where you want from here, but your NT ID is going to be locked until a week Monday, so don't expect to get much done if you hang around."

The AVP and HR Director both packed up and departed, leaving Plonq and Arjun alone in the room. The panda stepped closer to the door and listened until the sound of them talking faded sufficiently, and then he closed the door again.

He sat down, wheeled his chair close to the one Plonq had been occupying and patted it to encourage the snow leopard to sit again. "Sir, this was a very close call," he said once the feline had complied. "Bob was going to have you both terminated on Tuesday, but at the beginning of his meeting yesterday, Larry accepted full responsibility for the incident and tendered his resignation."

"He resigned?" Plonq's whiskers drooped in disbelief. "Larry always struck me as the kind of person who would go down swinging, and take as many with him as he could on the way out."

"Yes," Arjun nodded. "That would seem a fitting description for his character, but Hanna and I met with him before the meeting and ... incentivized him into making his decision. He was already planning to resign, but we convinced him to throw himself under the bus while he was at it."

"Incentivized...?" prompted Plonq, but the red panda shook his head.

"I have already told you more than I am supposed to," said Arjun with a quick glance over his shoulder toward the door. "We knew that Bob intended to fire both of you, but we thought if we sacrificed one of you with enough aplomb, we might be able to save the other." He winked. "You were our _second_ choice, but we both agreed that Larry would just get himself fired down the road again anyway if we kept him, so you seemed like the better long-term investment."

"Hey," protested the cat, but then he paused and scratched his chin. "Well, I am used to finishing well back from second, so I guess I have nothing to complain about." He extended his hand to his director and shook it vigorously. "Thank you," he said. "A single malt, you say..."

Plonq stayed behind in the meeting room for a few minutes after Arjun left, turning the card over and over in his hands while he mulled over the outcome of the meeting. He finally stepped out when he spied a couple of hopeful weasels standing outside the window, clutching notebook computers to their chests and wistfully willing him with their eyes to vacate the room early. He stepped out of the room and motioned back toward it with his head. "We are done here," he said simply.

Still fiddling with his pass card, the cat wandered in what he initially assumed was a random direction until he realized that he was operating on automatic and heading back toward his desk. " _My_ desk," he thought, and the knot of anxiety in his gut finally allowed itself to melt into a wave of relief. There was still a buzz of chatter as he passed by other cubicles and a few furtive askance glances from people he passed, but the feline tuned them all out. When he rounded the corner into his own cubicle area (if one had been watching closely they might have spied a little skip in his step as he rounded the corner), he spied the otter hunched over his keyboard, methodically scrolling through what looked like salmon recipes. Whether he saw the snow leopard's reflection in his monitor, or heard him enter the cubicle, the otter whirled in his chair, ripped off his headset and leapt to his feet.

"So?" he demanded, striding purposefully up to the snow leopard. Plonq mutely held up his pass card for the otter to see. After a passage of time best measured in nanoseconds, he found himself caught in a choking, otter embrace. "I knew it. I _knew_ it!" Giblet clung for what felt like an eternity to the oxygen-starved feline before he let go and stepped back a pace. "I totally knew you would beat this. I _told_ you so," said Giblet. "I meant to tell you that if I didn't. I knew you would come through, not because I think this whole thing is a load of crap - which it is - but because I had _faith_ in you." He jabbed the feline in the brisket with his index point to drive the last point home.

Then the otter blinked at the folder in the snow leopard's hand, seeing it for the first time. "What's all that?"

"Oh." Plonq held up the folder and opened it to show the otter its contents. "This is part of my conditional pardon. I am being ordered to take a course on anger management in order to... ack!" Before the snow leopard could complete the sentence, Giblet tore the folder out of his hands.

"You're not taking a course on _anything_ because this is _bullshit_!" said the otter angrily. He held the feline at arm's length with one hand and clutched the folder away from the latter with his other. "We need to go talk to somebody - nay, _yell_ at somebody about this. I think I know a thing or two about being angry, and _you_ are not an angry person. You are one of the most Zen-like individuals I know."

"But I have to ... that is one of the conditions ..." said Plonq weakly as he reached for the report in vain. "Giblet," he admonished, "they are sending me to obedience school so that they do not have to euthanize."

Giblet blinked.

Plonq blinked.

Without another word, the otter slowly handed the folder back to his friend.

"I have always envied your frightening succinctness," said the otter.

  * _End of part 4_




	5. Tea With The Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's reassuring to think of the world in black and white, good and evil. The truth lies more in shades of grey, where some individuals are more broken than others.
> 
> Two imperfect people exchange flawed arguments over crappy tea and then go home.

**Tribulation**

Part 5 - Tea with the Devil

_"I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes_

_And just for that one moment I could be you_

_Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes_

_You'd know what a drag it is to see you"_

_\- Bob Dylan (Positively 4th Street)_

The dumpy little snow leopard would admit, if asked, that he had never given much thought to what tea with the devil would entail. In his mind, the idea conjured up images of an ethereal setting with lots of polished brass and white marble, where the fancy silver tea service reflected distant flames, and succubae in stylish tuxedos delivered dainties on gold-frilled carts. Reality looked more like a fast-food doughnut shop with worn linoleum floors and molded plastic chairs. The devil was waiting for him in a booth to one side of the shop, with two tall cups of tea resting on a white-topped table supported by a single metal pole bolted into the floor.

Plonq was certain that the tea would be to his liking, since they had spoken extensively on the phone the day before, and the other had confirmed his tea preferences twice. As he neared, the snow leopard noted that the devil appeared to be fiddling around on his phone. The dark prince did not notice his approach until he had reached the booth and was standing at the end of the table. The wolf finally glanced up from his phone, and after an awkward, aborted attempt to rise, he waved at the feline to sit across from him.

"Thanks for coming," said Larry. He pushed the unopened cup of tea across to Plonq after the cat doffed his coat, stuffed it into the corner, and then wedged himself into the narrow space between the table and seat back of the little booth. "I wouldn't have blamed you for not showing up, but I'm glad you did."

Plonq shrugged. "You promised me free tea, and I am a sucker for free things," he said. The cat flipped back the mouth on the edge of the lid and took a cautious sip of the tea. It was still a bit too hot to drink, but the proportions of milk and sugar were to his liking. It was clear that the wolf had paid attention to his preferences on the phone the day before.

The wolf gave a tentative chuckle at what he assumed was a joke, and then turned serious again. "I just wanted a chance to say I was sorry again in person," he said. "I ... geez, your head looks pretty bad. Are you _sure_ you're okay to be out and around?"

The snow leopard delicately tapped the bandage on his temple. "It looks worse than it is," he replied. "They shaved away all my fur in the area so that they could put on the bandage - which is among the reasons why I kept telling them not to take me to the ER." He shuddered. "They also took blood and gave me a tetanus shot. The last time I had that many needles in me was when that drunken porcupine kissed me at the New Year's party."

"I _remember_ that," said the wolf with a genuine laugh this time. "She was pretty loaded. I feel bad for her, because everyone blamed her for the party being a dry one the next year." He shook his head and sighed. "Geez, I'd forgotten all about that one. It was actually kind of a fun place to work back then." He drowned the remains of his laugh in a long draught of tea. "I _remember_ when I used to not dread going in to work."

"Anyway," he continued, "I'm sorry about what happened last week. I didn't mean to drag you into my fight with the otter, but between the stress, and my recent migraines I hadn't been sleeping..." He stopped short and made a quick chopping motion with his right hand. "No, I promised myself that I wouldn't sit here and make excuses. I dragged you into my fight with Giblet, and I genuinely apologize for that." He paused to allow a particularly loud party of geese to pass their table before he spoke again. "Arjun said the fight was probably going to cost you your raise and bonus this year."

Plonq shrugged. "It did," he said shortly.

"Aw, dude..."

"Life goes on," said the snow leopard with a wry twitch of his whiskers. "I would have spent it foolishly on hedonistic pursuits and drunken debauchery until it ran out, leaving with me with no job, no clear memories, and a sad life of regrets. In a way, perhaps you helped me more than you hurt me."

"Is there _nothing_ you take seriously?" demanded the wolf.

"I am _very_ serious about my drunken debauchery," said the snow leopard with a hint of reproach. He punctuated the sentence with a sip of tea. "What about you? Arjun said that you pulled the pin."

"He told you that, did he?" said the wolf. He shook his head. "Well, whatever - everyone would have found out soon enough." He leaned forward onto the table, resting his right elbow on his left hand and waved his other hand while he talked. "I was ninety-nine percent sure they were going to fire me anyway, so I handed a written resignation to Arjun when he met me at the door. He was all like, 'Are you sure about this, sir?'," said the wolf in a remarkably accurate mimicry of the red panda's accent.

"I told him I was sure," he continued, "so he got hold of Hanna, and they told me that my resignation might be coming too late." He shrugged. "You know that whole 'You can't fire me because I quit' kind of thing. They were going to fire me with prejudice, which would have screwed me out of severance and other stuff. So they told me if I was willing to take full blame for the incident and offer my resignation, they would use it as leverage to give the VP an out so that he didn't have to fire us both. They said if I took the fall, they would ensure my resignation took priority over the firing."

The wolf stretched and gave a long, luxurious yawn. "You know what," he said, giving his head and neck a quick shake, "I think I've slept better in the last five days than I have at any time in the last five years. I wish I could retroactively quit a decade ago; I think that's when work stopped being fun."

They drank their tea in silence for a couple of minutes. Plonq watched the ebb and flow of cold people entering the shop and warm people leaving with hot coffee and doughnuts. He cast a couple of sidelong glances at the wolf across from him, but Larry seemed to be floating in a sea of his own thoughts at the moment. It was the cat who finally broke the silence again.

"So, now what," he asked.

The wolf grunted. "If I calculated it right, I should be getting well over a year's pay in severance. As soon as that's securely in my bank account, I'm booking a flight to the hottest resort I can find and spending a month baking in the sun. After that..." he shrugged. "I've got a couple of irons in the fire. My brother up in Fort McMurray thinks he can get me a temp gig at the small company where he works. They're looking to get their data organized and start measuring their performance. He said they were interested when he mentioned that I'm available. He's got a finished basement and said I could move in for as long as I need." Larry cast a piercing stare at the snow leopard. "I'm more worried about you than me."

It took the snow leopard a moment to process the wolf's statement. "Why are you worried about me?"

"Because I'm leaving you alone with that little spawn of Hell," said the wolf. He waggled a finger at the cat. "Don't roll your eyes at me - I'm serious. You haven't seen how bad he can be."

"I know that there is a certain amount of ... enmity between you two," said Plonq. It was his turn to lean on the table now. He rested his elbows on it and tapped his fingertips together while he thought. "I have been on the receiving end of his temper a few times, so I know how bad he can get..."

The wolf was waving his hands and furiously shaking his head. "No, no no, you _don't_ know how bad he can be," he said firmly. "He behaves himself around you because he likes you. When you're not around, the knives come out. He knows how to get under your skin. He knows how to hurt you with tiny jabs and cuts. He's relentless." The wolf was staring right through Plonq now. He drained the last of his tea and crushed his cup in his right fist. "He behaves around you because he fancies you. You had better hope he continues to," he added darkly.

His gaze suddenly focused on the feline before sliding over to the crushed cup in his hand. "Oh, hey, how's your tea holding up? I think I could use a refill."

Plonq drained the last of his tea and held out the empty cup to the wolf. He watched as the canine dropped the empties into the trash and queued up for fresh cups. Larry quickly reached the front of the line and the snow leopard watched him point animatedly at the menu board before finally paying. When he returned he was carrying a tray with two teas and an additional bag of food.

"I bought you a bagel too," said the wolf. "I'm pretty sure these are the kind you usually get, with lox and all those other things that have no right being on a bagel."

The snow leopard graciously thanked the other, and they both sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying their respective bagels and tea. In keeping with his namesake, the wolf finished his in very short order.

"What do you mean when you said he 'fancies' me," said Plonq. He casually nibbled another bit off the edge of his bagel as he asked it, but his laser focus on the wolf belied any casualness in the question.

"Just what I said," the wolf replied.

Plonq gave a longsuffering sigh. "He and I are friends, Larry. I know it looks funny that we live together, but trust me when I say that we are just good friends and roommates living in a platonic situation. I am intractably straight, and he accepts that. If I cannot convince you otherwise, then I am not sure what else I can say."

The wolf chuckled dryly. "He says and does things all the time. You came in dressed really nice one day because you had to do a presentation to the lead team. When you wandered off for a couple of minutes, I commented on how nicely you were dressed and teased him about having dressed you that morning. He said, 'Obviously not - does it look like he is wearing buttless chaps to you?'"

"He was obviously trying to get a rise out of you," said Plonq, rubbing his brow as if he felt a headache coming on. "He is a nasty little otter when he wants to be - trust me, I live with him. You said yourself that he knows how to get under your skin."

"It's not just the things he says," countered the wolf. "He's constantly calling you over for help on things that he should know how to do. You always wheel your chair over to his desk, and he always makes sure your tails are touching while you're there. He does that and casts me these little smug looks out of the corner of his eye, knowing that I know what he's doing."

"Larry..."

"Or how about Halloween three years ago," said the wolf, who was on too much a roll to be interrupted. "When Giblet cross-dressed in those super tight shorts with that halter top, glitter, and clip-on earrings. He makes a beeline right for your desk, pulls out your chair and then he struts a full circle around you, running a fingertip around your neck before he starts doing that ... that simulated lap dance with you. You'd have needed a micrometer to tell there was no actual contact."

Plonq held up his hand. "There was a bit of contact," he conceded, "but I am going to stop you right there. That was an _amazing_ costume, and we _both_ thought she was really hot before we knew who it was. You were over there patting your lap and saying, 'Hey, wolfie has needs too' while it was going on."

"That was before we figured out who it was," growled Larry defensively. "Once we knew it was Giblet, it should have ended there. Instead, he insisted on finishing the lap dance, _and you let him._ "

"Because it was still kind of hot in a slightly disturbing and awkward way," said Plonq primly. "Also, I think he probably spent a long time practising that dance, and it just did not feel right to ask him to cut it short before he could finish. Besides, half the office was egging us on."

"That's how it works with these people," said the wolf grimly. "That was a really calculated thing by him. They find their target and they take little liberties. A touch here, a hug there - they're always testing the boundaries. Maybe sneak in a quick kiss and see how it goes. They work their way in until you start to question your own sexuality."

Plonq leaned forward and stared slightly askance at the wolf with a hard, dubious gaze. "Larry," he said slowly, "do you actually, _seriously_ think that the 'gay agenda' is a real thing? I live with a gay otter, and he does not have an agenda." Larry started to interrupt, but the snow leopard pushed on over him. "We are talking about an otter who is so disorganized that he has a meltdown when he cannot find the work shirt he wants in one of the piles of clothes he has strewn about in his room and he does not care that there are lots of other good shirts because those are not the shirt he wants to wear today and we have to leave for work in three minutes and why does this always happen to him."

The feline paused to catch his breath. "An agenda of any kind, gay nor not, would be beyond an otter with such minimal organizational skills. Giblet can barely even dress himself some mornings, let alone enact a plan to turn his roommate gay."

The wolf looked around the restaurant and noticed a few heads turning their way while they spoke. "Look, grab your coat and tea and let's go for a walk," he said quickly. "This place is starting to fill up."

The two zipped themselves into their coats, collected their drinks and stepped out into the early-afternoon chill. Larry motioned down the street with a flick of his head. "My car's this way," he said. "I'll give you a lift home if you want." He strode off quickly while the shorter snow leopard stepped in double time to keep pace.

"The gay agenda is just political wedge words invented by people to push an agenda," said Plonq, puffing clouds of steam that dissipated quickly in the light breeze. "It is the same as calling something a gateway drug, or labelling poor people as welfare queens."

"The gay thing is real," insisted the wolf. "I know, because they got Sammy."

"Sammy?"

"My sister," said the wolf with a low, angry growl. They stopped for a crossing, and Plonq glanced over at the wolf while they waited. The canine's lip was pulled back slightly in light snarl. "She was a normal, boy-crazy, Jesus-loving girl until she went to college," he said. He shook his cup of tea, causing it to spurt up through the drinking spout. "That's one of their favourite places to find prey," he added coldly. The light changed, and they scurried across the street without speaking.

When they turned up the side street, Larry began to speak again. "She was fine through her whole junior year, and then she met Tiffany in second year." He turned and spat on the sidewalk, narrowly missing a pedestrian who had been coming the other way. "Goddamn otter with rings everywhere. Both ears, over the eye, nose, lip, tongue ... and God knows where else. I've never hated anyone more in my life for what she did to Sammy. I don't want to see it hap..."

" _An otter..._ " thought Plonq as things began to gel in his head. Part of him was tempted to let the wolf rant himself out, but the snow leopard already had a good idea of where the story was going.

"Larry," he said sharply, interrupting the wolf in mid-sentence. "Sammy was _always_ gay."

"She was _not_ ," snarled the wolf. He stopped dead in his tracks and whirled on the snow leopard. "I grew up with her, and I know my own sister. _She was not gay until that dyke got to her._ If she'd shown signs of it earlier, we could have got her help. She was completely normal right through her teens."

Plonq stepped out of the centre of the sidewalk and waved the wolf over to join him next to the building out of the way of pedestrian traffic. The snow leopard slouched back against the brickwork of the building where they'd stopped. He took a sip of his tea and stroked his chin a bit in thought.

"Would you hear me out on something?" he asked. "It may sound unrelated at first, but just hear me out."

At first the wolf looked like he was going to decline, but then he gave a dismissive wave with his free hand and turned so that he could lean on the building too. "Whatever, it's not like either of us have anything but free time these days," he said.

Plonq cupped his tea and swirled it while he willed his own thoughts to stop swirling. When he felt they were sufficiently composed, he began to speak.

"Once, when Giblet and I had been drinking rather a bit, he started opening up to me about his own family. It pains him to talk about them, but I guess he decided he had found a friend who he could trust with his pain. They disowned him when they learned that he was gay. They have completely cut him off, as have all of the family friends he grew up with. They were a very close, loving family but now he has nieces and nephews whom he has never met.

"I asked him why he told them about it when he knew how they would react." Plonq paused and pondered his tea for a moment.

"And what did he say?" prompted Larry.

"He said it was because they had raised him to be honest. He said that in retrospect; if he had the ability go back and change one thing it would have been to not have been born gay."

"He - wait, what?" demanded the wolf.

"Nothing has caused him more hardship in his life," said Plonq. "He has no desire to change what he is, but he would sacrifice it to save his younger self from how much it has sucked over the years. He always knew that he was different as a kid, but he acted the way he knew he was expected to act for most of his younger life because it was easier than the ugly alternative."

He saws the wolf's jaw working, but when the lupine did not speak, Plonq pressed on. He drew another long sigh. "What I am saying is that your sister did not _turn_ gay. She did not choose to be gay - no sane person does when they know how hard that will make their lives. Sammy might not have known that she was gay when she was younger, but I think she probably knew for a long time and was trying to wish and pray it away."

The snow leopard paused. "Did you guys completely cut her off?"

The wolf shrugged. He was focusing very hard on what was left of his tea. "Not ... as such," he said. "She knows how to reach me, but it's not like she's tried."

"Anyway," Plonq continued. "That was a few years back. These days when the subject comes up, he usually refers to them as 'my fucking family'. He does not say it with his old vitriol any more, rather as somebody who has buried them in the past with other misplaced shames." He paused for another sip of his tea, and he turned to eye the wolf over the back lip of his cup while he slurped. The cat lowered the cup again. "I am sorry if this is a very personal question, but do you still love your sister?"

"She knows where to reach me," repeated the wolf.

The two stood with their backs to the wall and finished their tea. As the cold began to seep its way through their jackets, Larry finally peeled himself from the wall and began ambling down the street without a word. Plonq turned to follow.

"Larry," he said, chasing after the wolf. "I know that I am not in a position to give you advice on something like this, but it would be way easier if _you_ were to call _her._ If she is not reaching out to you, it is probably because she thinks that you want nothing to do with her."

The wolf shrugged, but did not slow his pace.

"She is _still your sister_. Call her. Let her talk."

"The offer of a ride is still open," said the wolf tersely. "My car is just over there." He turned when he noticed that the snow leopard had stopped walking.

"Thank you for the tea and bagel," said Plonq, "but I think we both have some things to think about. I am going to walk home from here so that I can clear my head."

The wolf nodded. He stepped back to the feline and held out his hand. "I know we aren't going to agree on this thing, but thanks for coming out today," he said. "Watch out for yourself."

"I appreciate that you are looking out for me. Good luck in Fort McMurray," said Plonq, accepting the hand. "I _am_ going to miss you at the office, and not just because I am going to get stuck picking up a bunch of your work, you bastard."

The wolf laughed and pulled the cat in for a proper, manly hug. "I'll almost miss you too," he said.

Though Plonq was eager to get home and kick off his shoes, he stood by the curb with one hand in his pocket and the other clutching his tea, watching as the wolf got into his car, adjusted the seatbelt and mirror and then pulled out into traffic. The two gave a final, parting wave before the canine drove out of his life for what they both believed was for good. Even after the car was out of sight, the snow leopard remained still for another minute and stared at his breath as it condensed out of the air and drifted away. Finally he took another good slug of tea and started the long trundle toward home.

The cat unzipped his coat enough to fetch the phone out of his shirt pocket to see why somebody (who he assumed correctly was Giblet) had been blowing up his phone with texts for the past few minutes.

"hi. where r u? trying 2 reach u @ home."

"hello?"

"r u there."

"helloooooooooooo. is this thing on?"

"R U OK?"

"Hullo," he texted back. "Sorry, I met Larry for tea and had my phone muted."

"ugh. >w<" replied the otter. "did u punch him?"

"Just talked," typed Plonq. "I will tell you about it later. Pretty messed up."

"kk," texted the otter from the other end. "picking up bf & fried chicken on way home can u pls dig out dining room tbl."

"Sure," said the cat. He could imagine how frustrating it must be for others to chat with him by text, since he struggled mightily with his fat furry fingers on the tiny virtual keyboard. On the other hand, he was a something of a perfectionist when typing, so the person at the other end often had to wait through a long stretch of '...'s at their end to indicate that he was, indeed, still typing a response. "I will clean up the place a bit when I get home."

"thx"

* * *

Plonq returned to work the following Monday with no fanfare, and almost no attention other than a few scattered 'good morning's as he passed. He knew, via Giblet, that Arjun had made the rounds, asking people not to make his return any more awkward than it needed to be.

Before he could even take off his coat, the cat was tapped for a meeting with Hanna to outline some rules for him in the immediate future, including a reminder of the mandatory course he was to take.

"Oh, you already completed it? Good. You should stop by HR with the forms before you do anything else today."

He was intercepted on the way back to his desk by Arjun, who wanted to discuss some of the work he would be picking up from Larry. He followed this with forty minutes on the phone with IT trying to get the suspension lifted from his user code. This is how it was almost two hours into his day before he was finally able to log into his workstation and start checking his email. He hoped that they had suspended his email account at the same time as they had locked his user code, but to his dismay he found that they had not.

The feline scrolled through a page and a half of status reports and noise before one subject line jumped out at him.

"From: [_Larry_T_Wolf@dogmail.com_](mailto:Larry_T_Wolf@dogmail.com)

To: [_Plonq.Snowcat@railway.ca_](mailto:Plonq.Snowcat@railway.ca)

Time: 04:35

Subject: ok so I phone her lik you said"

He glanced over at the empty desk where the wolf used to sit. Facilities had worked their magic on that corner of the cubicle to the point where one might never guess that it had been occupied for years. Plonq looked back at the time stamp of the email, and the subject line that looked like it might have been written while drunk before he locked his workstation again.

He stretched and yawned before pushing back his chair and toddling over to where Giblet was hunched over his own workstation. Plonq tapped the otter gently on the shoulder.

"I think I need a bit more fortification before I deal with this inbox..." the cat began, but in a motion almost too fast to follow, the otter locked his own workstation, leapt from his chair and snagged his coat. He stood in front of the snow leopard with the jacket slung over his arm.

"Did I hear something about caffeine?" asked Giblet. "You know me and coffee. Lead on, good sir!"

Prisha was fighting with the laser printer again when she heard them passing. She glanced up and watched the pair walking in stride toward the front elevator. As usual, the otter was speaking very animatedly with lots of exaggerated arm waving that forced him to constantly rescue the coat that threatened to fall off his arm. The snow leopard, meanwhile, occasionally shrugged or made other small signs to indicate that he was at least _pretending_ to listen.

"Now _there_ goes double trouble," she said to nobody in particular.

Nobody in particular was inclined to disagree.

_The End_


End file.
